I went to the gym Friday. It wasn’t too crowded, and I look forward to going back. No one was to be found to ask about a trainer, but I will get to that. I just walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes and worked up a good sweat. I went back yesterday and did the same thing although there weren’t very many people there on a Sunday afternoon. I’m really enjoying this and plan to go back after work today.
Treadmill
Blessed
1 Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him;
2 the LORD protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
3 The LORD sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.
4 As for me, I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
5 My enemies say of me in malice, “When will he die, and his name perish?”
6 And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words, while his heart gathers iniquity; when he goes out, he tells it abroad.
7 All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.
8 They say, “A deadly thing is poured out on him; he will not rise again from where he lies.”
9 Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
10 But you, O LORD, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them!
11 By this I know that you delight in me: my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.
12 But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen. – Psalms 41
Gym
I’ve needed to get in better shape for a while now. In the last few months I’ve gained weight, enough that my clothes don’t fit as well anymore. So I decided to do something about it. I joined a gym. Joining was step one. Step two is actually going. Because my membership card has not come yet, I can only get in between 10 am and 6 pm, which means I can’t go tonight after work because I have to work late. My boss and I are taking a sort of field trip to check out two other museums in the state. We likely won’t get back before 6 pm. Therefore, my plan is to go after I get off work Friday.
Forgot
I simply forgot to do a post last night for today. Ugh, it makes me mad at myself, but I had other things on my mind. More about those things tomorrow.
D-Day
I must return
I must go back to Normandy
to look out upon the sea,
Where once a great armada
carried troops, including me.
I must go back to Omaha
to walk along the shore,
and let my mind go back in time
to when there was a war.
When I go back I know I’ll mourn,
and shed some tears and feel the pain.
But I must go back and reminisce,
and think, and pray for those who there remain.
For they, too, were out upon that sea,
and then they died in Normandy.
Now from their graves above the shore,
they’ll keep their watch out on that sea, forever more.
I must go back to Normandy,
and, with them, once more,
look out upon that sea.
Sergeant Frank J. Wawrynovic landed on Omaha Brach on D-Day with C Company of the First Battalion, 115th Regiment, 29th Division. On June 17, he was wounded while scouting ahead of the American line in an orchard near the Norman city of St. Lô. He was evacuated, hospitalized for nearly two years, and discharged with a medical disability. After the war he returned to school and had a successful business career. Over the years he and his wife, Stella, gave very generous support to a variety of charities and non-profit organizations, including Normandy Allies. Many years after the war, his thoughts returned to that episode, leading him to write the poem shown above. He died in 2005, and his wife followed him in 2013.
D-Day occurred 73 years ago today and led to the liberation of Europe from Hitler’s Nazi regime.
LGBTQ History Matters
LGBTQ people have always existed, but our history has either not been recorded or has actively been erased. Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s was the gayest city on the planet, easily the San Francisco of its day. Yet the Nazis erased everything, putting gay men in concentration camps, where they were either worked to death or forced to have lobotomies performed. Unlike gay men, lesbians were not generally regarded as a social or political threat. Anthropologists are revealing the existence of LGBTQ people in cultures across the globe.
LGBTQ history is important not only for our community but for everyone. Part of the richness of LGBTQ culture and history is that it poses alternative social structures to the patriarchal and hierarchical model that saturates modern society. Because of the ubiquity of LGBTQ people, our continuing liberation movement is part of and a collaborator with other liberation struggles.
The recent presidential election in the U.S. heightens the importance of all of us resisting together. Saturday, June 10, Vermont will hold an LGBTQ Solidarity March on Montpelier. The March is an act of solidarity with the LGBTQIA National Unity March on Washington. LGBTQ people from across Vermont and other states will march on the Vermont capital of Montpelier.
The Two Types of Pride
Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else. Galatians 6:4
Selfish pride can be defined as “excessive confidence or glorification in one’s self, possessions or nation.” The concept is found in the Bible, along with pride itself, in words such as arrogance, haughtiness and conceit, among others, all of which are opposite of Godly humility. The wrongness of self-centered pride is essentially twofold. On a spiritual level, it inevitably leads to disregard, disrespect and disobedience to God i.e. self-centered pride is primarily what transformed the once-righteous Lucifer into the wicked Satan after he became too impressed with himself: “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). On a worldly level, selfish pride very often results in self-destructive behavior because, while a form of self-delusion, it isn’t necessarily as much an overestimation of one’s self as it is a dangerous underestimation of others, hence “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
The Bible warns us about the dangers of pride, by which it means an arrogant, haughty, self-centered attitude that looks down on others and feels no need of God. This kind of pride is wrong in God’s eyes because it can make someone act as if he/she is the most important person in the world. That cuts us off from others; no one likes someone who’s constantly acting as if they’re better or more important than anyone else. A prideful attitude also cuts us off from God, because we think we can get along without Him. But the Bible warns, “The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and human pride brought low” (Isaiah 2:11).
The Bible also speaks of a good pride, but it differs greatly from selfish pride, what we might call a healthy understanding of what God has given us, and a humble determination to do our best for His glory. This can be good, giving us the confidence we need to meet challenges and undertake new tasks. The Bible says, “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else” (Galatians 6:4).
Be on guard against a self-centered pride that ultimately will destroy you. Instead, see yourself the way God sees you, and humbly accept the gifts He has given you. Most of all, humble yourself at the foot of the cross, and commit your life and your future to Jesus Christ.
As LGBT Christians we should take pride in keeping the faith, even when others tell us we are not wanted. A friend of mine sent me a quote the other day, that I found very inspirational and I believe it is a perfect example of why we should look at pride in a different way.
Maybe our journey in life isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you so you can become who you were meant to be in the first place.
Our experienced help shape us, but they don’t define us. Sometime we have to unlearn things or peel away those things that hold us back. We are taught by most ministers that pride is evil, but can we not have a humble pride? We should take pride in God and the life he has created in us. For me this type of pride is about glorifying God. We are made in the image of God, and we should take pride in that. We are a witness to God’s radical love, and his love is everlasting and unconditional. God promises us eternal life, but we must believe and have faith and follow his word (as a member of the churches of Christ, I feel compelled to say “and be baptized” but I know not everyone believes in the necessity of baptism). Our faith is miraculous: as LGBT Christians we are constantly told that we are the living embodiment of sin, but we have kept the faith, because our loving God encourages and guides us to the truth. We are called to transform the world: it is our duty to show others that God’s love is everlasting and unconditional. God journeys with us, and He is with a us at all times, in good or bad. Our experiences teach us how to love authentically and not to listen to those who are naysayers or preach hate. As LGBT Christians, God has freed us from shame for we have nothing to be shameful of, because we have kept the faith. By embracing ourselves, we bring inner peace because we know who we are and we have “unbecome” what others told us to become because we have followed the path of God’s truth. We are unique creations of God. Without that uniqueness we’d all be the same, and God made us all diverse and wonderful people who are filled with the capacity to love.
Some gay people find pride to be one time of the year when they do not feel alone, isolated, cut-off, rejected, hated and despised. Pride helps gay people feel they are not a tiny, powerless minority group. Through pride, many gay people find a sense of belonging, a sense of being worthwhile. Society has long taught gay people to hate themselves. By taking pride in who they are in Christ, gay people can start the long process of overcoming self-hate. Standing side-by-side with God, gay Christians are an accepted, loved, connected and powerful majority!
Gay Christians can find meaning in pride. They are start to feel able to freely and openly celebrate who they are in Christ. God wants that! God wants gay people to stop hating and fearing themselves, because those who live secret lives of pain are not able to fully celebrate their identity in Christ. Through gay pride, God calls gay Christians to live as though the world waits for them, waits for them to passionately praise God, to love as faithfully as God loves and to celebrate life, as they walk hand-in-hand with Christ into eternity.
So take pride in our struggles. We need that good, unselfish pride to show others the true light of God. So as we celebrate the forty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, with Gay Pride Month coming to an end, and next Friday, we celebrate the pride we feel in the independence of the American spirit, we should rejoice with others that God allows us that feeling of warmth in our hearts that is our unselfish pride.
The picture at the top of this post is the reaction to this group of Chicago Christians who showed up at a gay pride parade to apologize for homophobia in the Church.
A Posthumous Wedding
Gay Man Makes History By Marrying Cop Killed In Terrorist Attack
Curtis M. Wong is the Senior Editor of HuffPost Queer Voices
A gay police officer killed by a gunman in Paris was married in a posthumous wedding that’s believed to be a historic first.
Xavier Jugelé, 37, was shot dead April 20 on the Champs-Élysées three days before the French presidential election. The Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack, which left two other officers wounded. The gunman, identified as Karim Cheurfi, was shot dead by security forces.
Though details of Wednesday’s nuptials are scarce, Etienne Cardiles married Jugelé in a ceremony attended by former French president François Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, The Guardian reports. It’s believed to be the first posthumous same-sex wedding to take place in France (where marriage equality has been the law of the land since 2013) and possibly the world, according to the BBC.
The U.S. does not recognize posthumous matrimony under federal law, but its origins in France can be traced back to 1803. The practice became particularly popular during World War I, when it allowed women to wed slain soldiers, thus legitimizing any children conceived beforehand and entitling them to a pension.
France’s current legislation allowing people to marry the dead dates back to 1959, when a woman named Irène Jodard requested permission from former French President Charles de Gaulle to wed her fiancé, André Capra, after he had drowned. Hundreds of people have since applied for post-mortem matrimony under the law, which requires applicants to send a formal request to the president, according to The New York Times.
Cardiles made global headlines when he delivered an impassioned eulogy at an April 26 memorial service for Jugelé, who had also been deployed during the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m suffering without hate,” Cardiles said in the speech, which was transcribed by Time magazine. “This hate, Xavier, I don’t have it because it never existed in you… Because tolerance, dialogue and temperance were your best weapons. Because behind the policeman there was the man. Because you become a policeman by choice; the choice to help others and to fight against injustice.”
An associate described Jugelé as having been “really committed” to queer causes. Mickaël Bucheron, who is the president of Flag, a French association for LGBTQ police officers, said Jugelé had been active with the group for several years. “He protested with us when there was the homosexual propaganda ban at the Sochi Olympic Games,” Bucheron told The New York Times.
Here’s to hoping the union gives Cardiles some comfort following his tragic loss.
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