Anonymous ("I purchased this stole in Jerusalem from a woman who sews such things to raise money... I prayed that my vocation would be a ministry such as hers...")

ANONYMOUS

I purchased this stole in Jerusalem from a woman who sews such things to raise money for Palestinian refugees.  When I was ordained, I prayed that my vocation would be a ministry such as hers.  Since my ordination, I have been found to be an effective, learning, spiritual leader by my cabinet, my colleagues, and my congregations.  But the UMC shames me because of my sexual orientation.  I am effective only so far as I remain silent about my sexuality.  I die a little more with each General Conference pronouncement that some of the most joy-filled parts of my life are incompatible with Christian teaching.  Someday the church will have killed too much of me.  Someday I will have nothing left to offer of myself to my congregations.  All the while, I'm the one who feels shame for my church.  It is the bigotry of the UMC that is incompatible with Christian teaching.

This stole was given to us in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH. It was sent to us through a third party; nothing else is known about the donor. In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles.”  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006