Monthly Archives: June 2017

June 30, 2017

Down to the Studs

By Joe

HGTV recently aired a pilot for a potential new show called Down to the Studs, which would star husbands PJ and Thomas; a couple that refer to themselves, somewhat artlessly though appropriately, as the “Property Lovers.”

In order to ramp up interest in the show, PJ and Thomas have been pleading with their Instagram followers — did we mention the shared Instagram account? — to support the show by using the hashtag #HGTVDowntotheStuds.

“PLEASE SHARE and TAG HGTV*** YALL,” they wrote.

“Here’s our news that we’ve been keeping secret for a year and a half! We can finally tell you!!! We have a pilot premiering TOMORROW on HGTV called Down to the Studs! This is a HUGE step for the LGBTQ community! But guys, we need your help!”

So far, there’s been no news about whether or not the series is being picked up, so you’re encouraged to hashtag your little heart out if you happen to like the pilot, which was really good.

1 Comment | posted in Television

June 29, 2017

Home

By Joe

By the time this blog posts this morning, I will in the air on my way home. My parents know I am coming home, but the rest of my family doesn’t know. It’s going to be a big surprise. July 4th has always been a big holiday for my family and we will have a big BBQ on that day. I’m really looking forward to it.

Being home also means that I have limited internet access. I will do my best to post, but if I don’t, don’t worry. It just means that I didn’t have internet access.

Stonewall

By Joe

Something unremarkable happened on June 27, 1969 in New York’s Greenwich Village, an event which had occurred a thousand times before across the U.S. over the decades. The police raided a gay bar. The events that followed marked the beginnings of the Gay Rights Movement.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

For more information about the beginnings of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States and the Stonewall Riots, please check out my series of post on Stonewall.

HAPPY GAY PRIDE!!!

Leave a comment | posted in History, Uncategorized

June 27, 2017

Knoxville, Tennessee

By Joe

Knoxville, Tennessee
by Nikki Giovanni, 1943

I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy’s garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbecue
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep

2 Comments | posted in Poetry

June 26, 2017

The Picture Says It All

By Joe

My new gym doesn’t have locker rooms, but I wish it did.

1 Comment | posted in Workout

June 25, 2017

The Rainbow

By Joe

Rainbow Christ Prayer: LGBT Flag Reveals The Queer Christ

By REV. KITTREDGE CHERRY

Colors of the rainbow flag reveal the many faces of the queer Christ in the following Rainbow Christ Prayer I wrote with gay theologian Patrick S. Cheng.

Rainbow flags were flying around the world in June for LGBT Pride Month. Rainbows are also an important symbol in many religious traditions. The Rainbow Christ Prayer honors the spiritual values of the LGBT movement.

The prayer matches the colors of the rainbow flag with the seven models of the queer Christ from Patrick’s book From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ.

Let us pray…

Rainbow Christ, you embody all the colors of the world. Rainbows serve as bridges between different realms: heaven and earth, east and west, queer and non-queer. Inspire us to remember the values expressed in the rainbow flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

Red is for life, the root of spirit. Living and Self-Loving Christ, you are our Root. Free us from shame and grant us the grace of healthy pride so we can follow our own inner light. With the red stripe in the rainbow, we give thanks that God created us just the way we are.

Orange is for sexuality, the fire of spirit. Erotic Christ, you are our Fire, the Word made flesh. Free us from exploitation and grant us the grace of mutual relationships. With the orange stripe in the rainbow, kindle a fire of passion in us.

Yellow is for self-esteem, the core of spirit. Out Christ, you are our Core. Free us from closets of secrecy and give us the guts and grace to come out. With the yellow stripe in the rainbow, build our confidence.

Green is for love, the heart of spirit. Transgressive Outlaw Christ, you are our Heart, breaking rules out of love. In a world obsessed with purity, you touch the sick and eat with outcasts. Free us from conformity and grant us the grace of deviance. With the green stripe in the rainbow, fill our hearts with untamed compassion for all beings.

Blue is for self-expression, the voice of spirit. Liberator Christ, you are our Voice, speaking out against all forms of oppression. Free us from apathy and grant us the grace of activism. With the blue stripe in the rainbow, motivate us to call for justice.

Violet is for vision, the wisdom of spirit. Interconnected Christ, you are our Wisdom, creating and sustaining the universe. Free us from isolation and grant us the grace of interdependence. With the violet stripe in the rainbow, connect us with others and with the whole creation.

Rainbow colors come together to make one light, the crown of universal consciousness. Hybrid and All-Encompassing Christ, you are our Crown, both human and divine. Free us from rigid categories and grant us the grace of interwoven identities. With the rainbow, lead us beyond black-and-white thinking to experience the whole spectrum of life.

Rainbow Christ, you light up the world. You make rainbows as a promise to support all life on earth. In the rainbow space, we can see all the hidden connections between sexualities, genders and races. Like the rainbow, may we embody all the colors of the world! Amen.

I got the idea for the Rainbow Christ Prayer as I reflected on Patrick Cheng’s models of the queer Christ. Patrick and I each spent years developing the ideas expressed in the Rainbow Christ Prayer. It incorporates rainbow symbolism from queer culture, from Christian tradition and from the Buddhist/Hindu concept of chakras, the seven colored energy centers of the human body. The prayer is ideal for use when lighting candles in a rainbow candle holder.

The Rainbow Christ Prayer has been welcomed and used by many progressive Christian communities, but denounced as blasphemy by conservatives at Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.

I first wrote about linking the colors of the rainbow flag to queer spirituality in my 2009 reflection on Bridge of Light, a winter holiday honoring LGBT culture. Meanwhile Patrick was working on his models of the queer Christ based on LGBT experience. In 2010 he presented five models of the queer Christ in his essay Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People at the Jesus in Love Blog.

In a moment of inspiration I realized Patrick’s various queer Christ models matched the colors of the rainbow flag.

Patrick and I joined forces and the Rainbow Christ Prayer was born. With wonderful synchronicity, Patrick had already added two more queer Christ models, so he now had seven models to match the seven principles from Bridge of Light. He wrote a detailed explanation of all seven models in his book From Sin to Amazing Grace published in spring 2012 by Seabury Books.

Gay spirituality author Joe Perez also helped lay the groundwork for this prayer in 2004 when he founded the interfaith and omni-denominational winter ritual known as Bridge of Light. People celebrate Bridge of Light by lighting candles, one for every color of the rainbow flag. Each color corresponds to a universal spiritual principle that is expressed in LGBT history and culture. I worked with Joe to revise the Bridge of Light guidelines based on my on own meditations on the chakras and their connections to the colors of the rainbow flag.

The symbolism of the rainbow resonates far beyond the LGBT flag.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the rainbow stands for God’s promise to support all life on earth. It plays an important role in the story of Noah’s Ark. After the flood, God places a rainbow in the sky, saying, “Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:15-16).

Lastly, in the Book of Revelation, a rainbow encircles the throne of Christ in Heaven.

Originally published on Jesus In Love; Image via Andrew Craig Williams

Moment of Zen: Pietro Boselli

By Joe

1 Comment | posted in Moment of Zen

June 23, 2017

Keep It Real

By Joe

Last night I watched “Is Genesis History?” which my boss recommended. The program tries to prove that Genesis is literal history. It attempts to convince the viewer to believe that yom (י֔וֹם) means a literal day not a period of time. Yom can mean either. It also tries to say that the Grand Canyon was created by the Great Flood of Noah. I just don’t buy it. If Genesis is literal than mankind is only 6,000 years old, but we know from science that mankind has been around for much longer. I believe that Genesis is allegorical. All I have to say to the filmmakers is the same thing on the guy’s shirt above–keep it real.

Summer

By Joe

Today is the first day of summer. The picture above is the epitome of summer for me. Sitting with a friend by the pool eating a juicy watermelon. Yum. Celebrate summer. If it wasn’t so hot, it would be my favorite season.

Last night, I had Chinese for supper. My fortune cookie was a little naughty if you take it a certain way. It said, “Love is like a sweet peach, good to the last drop.” Am I the only one who sees something dirty in this, or is it just my mind in the gutter?

By the way, the “divided peach” is a term for homosexuality in China. Mizi Xia was the favorite of Duke Ling of Wei (534-493 BCE). One day Mizi Xia bit into a peach and finding it sweet, he stopped eating it and offered it to the ruler. The ruler was moved by his ‘considerate behavior’. From hence came these expressions for homosexuality: “a preference for the leftover peach”, and “the love of the divided peach.”

1 Comment | posted in Miscellaneous

June 20, 2017

Sonnet 18

By Joe

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Summer begins tomorrow.