Anonymous ("I have found that having AIDS has made me even more sure of God's love for me and for all persons...")

Anonymous

I have found that having AIDS has made me even more sure of God's love for me and for all persons.  But as a UM pastor I felt unable to share this experience, even with those who had chronic or terminal illnesses, and was thus unable to share the stories with which I could most effectively witness to my faith and to God's love.

Because of this, I found it increasingly difficult to preach and teach that if we Christians were truly open, if we truly loved one another unconditionally as the Lord commands us, we would be able to share our problems as well as our joys with each other.

For some years I was able to live with the church law against homosexuality, even though I knew in my heart that it was un-Christian.  But, because of the denomination's increasingly harsh stance against some of God's children, which is so foreign to my own experience of Jesus and his message, I finally found it necessary to leave the pulpit.  I felt forced to choose between Christ and the Church.

Strangely, while many will say my homosexuality is a sin, what I really wonder is if in fact my real sin is my refusing to serve God in the way that was clearly God's will for me.

Unfortunately, even having given up the pulpit, I feel it is necessary to remain anonymous.

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