Anonymous (Donated by Kelly Turney)

Anonymous

I studied alongside this insightful, gentle spirit during our M.Div. Years and I knew he'd make a great pastor.  I wasn't so sure of myself but he knew from an early age that he was called and pursued a church vocation all his life.

He was a leader in his local church growing up - at every age level - then served with distinction at the denominational level in Nashville.  When he became a candidate for ordination, his West Virginia conference was so pleased.  They needed pastors, true, but this was a boy they had raised to love God and serve the church and they were so proud.

But at school, he began to draw away from his conference, trying to shield himself from the pain of rejection he knew he would face.  His secret, his sexual orientation,  would change how the conference perceived their golden son.  He "came out" to his Board of Ordained Ministry right before the vote.  The Board asked him to withdraw the statement.  "Take it back and we'll pass you."  As he recounted that moment to me, you could see how the pride for the UMC was knocked out of him as immediately, completely and shockingly as having the wind knocked out of your body.

"They wanted me to lie!  If I would just lie to them they'd vote me in."  What a bizarre concept he thought - they admitted he was qualified (even a gay man) but they wanted him to be dishonest.  Yet living a lie was completely incompatible with the theology, integrity and understanding of being a child of God that the church had taught him growing up.

He's now a respected and valued leader in the Episcopal Church and has a lovely home with his partner.  They have a beautiful life together serving God.

A number of people who have read this story at displays of the Shower of Stoles have commented on its appalling irony -- that the United Methodist Church should directly encourage someone to lie, and then punish him for choosing to maintain his integrity and tell the truth.  It is fortunate, indeed, that this young man decided to leave a church that would ask such a thing of him, and instead offer his considerable gifts in service to a church that has wholly embraced him.

This stole was given to us in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH.  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