Jerome Walker

The Son loves all His flowers
The Sonshine doesn't ask the daisies to be tulips

JEROME WALKER
Park Slope United Methodist Church
Brooklyn, NY

I have been a member of the PSUMC choir for ten years.  I have used my origami art to decorate the church's Christmas tree for ten years.  I have been a Teacher's Assistant in Sunday School for three years.  I have been a liturgist and worship leader for eight years.  I have been HIV+ for thirteen years.

This is one of thirty one stoles from Park Slope United Methodist Church included in a display of UM stoles at the 2000 General Conference of the UMC in Cleveland.  All are made from identically sized pieces in turquoise, lavender and purple cotton batik,  With only 200 members, Park Slope has donated the largest number of stoles to the collection from a single United Methodist congregation. 

A diverse community, Park Slope's creed is: Hand in hand, we the people of the Park Slope United Methodist Church -- black and white, straight and gay, old and young, rich and poor -- unite as a loving community, in covenant with God and the Creation. Summoned by our faith in Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to the humanization of urban life and to physical and spiritual growth.  A scrappy congregation utterly committed to putting their faith into action, Park Slope has been unrelenting in its pursuit of justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the UMC.  It has also been a safe haven, and a place of support and healing for a number of folk like Jerome who are HIV positive.

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