Open Hands Vol 4 No 1 - Living and Loving with AIDS

Open Hands Vol 4 No 1 - Living and Loving with AIDS

4

1

1988

Summer

l
'1s your heart true to my heart as mine lS. to yours . ? ... 11if'tt Summer 1988
Vol. 4 eNo. 1
Journal ofthe Reconciling Congregation Program
by Nancy A. Carter .............. p. 3
Plagues and People
by Howard Moody ............... p. 8
AIDS: Opportunities for Ministry
by Nancy A. Carter, Sally Daniel, Bill Lasher, and J. Delton Pickering .................... p. 14
Vol.4
• NO.1· Summer 1988
Open Hands is published by Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc., as a resource for the Reconciling Congregation Program. It addresses concerns of lesbians and gay men as they relate to the ministry of the church.
The Reconciling Congregation Program is a network of United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministry with the whole family of God and who welcome lesbians and gay men into their co mmunity. In this network, Re~onciling Congregations find strength and support as they strive to overcome the divisions caused by prejudice and homophobia in our church and in our society. Together these congregations offer hope that the church can be a reconciled community.
To enable local churches to engage in these ministries, the program provides resource materi al s, includ i ng Open Hands. Resource persons are available focally to assist a congregation that is seeking to become a Reconciling Congregation.
Information about the program can be obtained by writing: Reconciling congregation~ Program
P.O. Box 24213 Nashville, TN 37202
Reconciling Congregation Program
Coordinators
Mark Bowman Beth Richardson
Open Hands Co-Editors
M. Burrill Bradley Rymph
This Issue's Coordinators
Mary Gaddis Jeremy Landau
Typesetting and Graphic Design
Linda Coffin Leanne Poteet
Other Contributors to This Issue
Mike Alexander, Harold Burris, Nancy A.
Carter, Sally Daniel, Bill Lasher, Lyle
Loder, Paul and Ethyle Loder, Howard
Moody, J. Delton Pickering, Kim Smith,
Wendy Tate, Duane Wilkerson
Cover photo by Judy Cayot
Open Hands (formerly MMJIIa for the }ourMY) is published four times a year. Subscription is $12 for four issues ($16 outside the U.S.A.). Single copies are available for $4 each; quantities of 10 or more are $3 each. Permission to reprint is granted upon request. Reprints of certain articles are available as indicated in the issue. Subscriptions and correspondence should be sent to:
Open Hands
P.O. Box 23636
Washington, DC 20026
Copyright 1988 by Affirmation : United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc.
ISSN 0888-8833
Open Hands
Contents
T:e number of AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States now approaches
, ~5,OOO. Over half of these persons have died. Major church bodies are slowly responding to this unfolding health crisis in our society. However, local churches and individuals have been active in the fight against AIDS for several years now. With this issue of Open Hands, we celebrate this work that has been faithfully and quietly undertaken and hope these stories offer suggestions to your local community.
Nancy A. Carter opens this issue by looking at the AIDS crisis in the context of a familiar Gospel story in "On the Road to Emmaus" (p. 3). Howard Moody's "Plagues and People" (p. 8) offers insights into the Christian community's handling of health epidemics historically and today.
In the more personal dimension we offer writings from the late Lyle Loder in "Choosing Life with Power" (p. 6) along with reflections by his parents, Paul and Ethyle Loder in "After the Phone Call" (p. 7). Wendy Tate examines the trauma that AIDS can bring upon closeted gay men in "AIDS in the Closet" (p. 24).
To help portray an accurate and full picture of the AIDS epidemic, we offer a concise definition of the disease in "What Is AIDS?" (p. 5). We explore unfamiliar dimensions of the disease in "Women and AIDS: Fighting Invisibility" by M. Burrill (p. 10) and "AIDS in the Black Community: An Interview with Harold Burris" (p. 11).
"AIDS: Opportunities for Ministry" (p. 14) portrays how churches and individuals have responded to local needs. These articles include: "AIDS on Retreat" by Bill Lasher, "When AIDS Comes Home To Us" by Nancy A. Carter, "Person to Person" by Sally Daniel, and "Churches Bind Together" by J. Delton Pickering. "When A Loved One Has AIDS" (p. 18) talks in clear, simple language about how we can care for a loved one with AIDS. This issue's SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT (p. 20) uses the Jewish celebration of Yom Hashoa as a framework for a liturgical response to AIDS. This was written by Jeremy Landau, a United Methodist minister who is under appointment to AIDS ministries in San Francisco and serves on the board of directors of the AIDS National Interfaith Network.
We report on the United Methodist Church's Consultation on AIDS, which was held last fall, in "Following Jesus' Example" by Mike Alexander
(p. 22) and "Empowering the Ministry of Reconciling Congregations" by Kim Smith and Duane Wilkerson (p. 23). In addition to RESOURCES on AIDS (p. 25), we present our usual roundup of activities in the Reconciling Congregation Program in the RCP REPORT (p. 26).
NEXT ISSUE'S THEME:
Children and Homophobia
2
In Luke 24: 13-35, two followers of Jesus are walking home to Emmaus on Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection. Christ appears and walks and talks with them, but they do not recognize him. They share with him their acute grief about his death.
Why did not these two people recognize Jesus? They did not recognize Jesus because of their broken relationships in three areas: with Jesus himself, with women in their society, and with the scriptures. This story has something to say to the church as it walks on an Emmaus road called the AIDS crisis. Brokenness is there, and sometimes we don't recognize t~e Christ.
On the Road
An examination of the travelers' conversation with Jesus reveals their brokenness. First, they say that they had hoped that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel from foreign rule, the Messiah foretold in the scriQtures. This means they had seen Jesus, they had known Jesus, but they had not understood him. Something was broken in their relationship with Jesus; they had a distorted vision of him and his mission, which limited what he was really about.
Second, they tell Jesus that earlier that day some women had told them that Jesus had risen, but they did not believe the women. Later in the chapter, we learn that the apostles and the others believe one man, Peter, when he says Christ has risen. Though they have dismissed the word of at least five women, one man's word is good enough for them. Clearly their relationship with women is broken, because the women's witness is discounted; women are not considered to be full members of society.
And, finally, Jesus himself chides the two people on the road to Emmaus for not believing the prophecy of the scriptures and proceeds to tell them all of the things in the scriptures about himself. He is telling the travelers that they read the scripture selectively when they hoped he would be their King , the Anointed One who would liberate Israel. Their relationship with scripture is broken. They are not listening to its whole witness.
The travelers to Emmaus had their experience of the resurrection
delayed because of these three broken relationships
with Jesus, society, and scripture. If they had really known who
Jesus was, they would have recognized him as he came near to
them. If they had listened to the women that morning, they
could have already been celebrating the Good News instead of
grieving. If they had understood the whole testimony of the
scriptures, they would have known he would rise again.
How often has Jesus been walking along beside us and
talking with us and we have failed to recognize him? How often
have we had delayed experiences of Christ's resurrection experiences
of joy, or hope, or celebration -because of our
broken relationships?
In the spring of 1983, my friend Charles, the treasurer of Washington Square United Methodist Church, where I was a member, was diagnosed with AIDS. My journey and that of other Christians involved with AIDS work has been a journey on the Emmaus road, a road full of grief and brokenness. But Christ is walking that road with us and talking to us and teaching us, even if we do not recognize him, and resurrection and new life is present, even if we don't know it yet.
When Charles was diagnosed with AIDS in 1983, I was faced with a number of decisions about our personal relationship. Researchers suspected AIDS was sexually transmitted, but they did not know for sure. Could I catch AIDS from him? Should I continue to let him come to my house each week and rent time on my word processor? Today we know how AIDS is transmitted. We know that it cannot be spread through everyday casual contact such as shaking hands, hugging, working together, or eating together. But in 1983 we did not know how AIDS was transmitted. And, I wondered, how would I respond to him?
to
Emmaus
I was scared. I was scared because I did not understand about AIDS and because a 33-year-old man was dying. I was just one year older than he was; people our age are too young to die. I had to deal with more than my fear of AIDS -I had to deal with my fear of death. AIDS confronts us with our mortality.
What would I say to Charles? Part of my decision was fatalistic. I decided that if AIDS were casually transmitted, I already had it, so Charles continued to come to my home and use my word processor. But the other part of my decision was based on my view of the church and its purpose. Charles was an active member of my church community. It was inconsistent with my theology of the church and of ministry to separate myself from him in his time of crisis. The church is to be a caring, healing community. I invited him over for lunch, something I had never done before, and I did not throwaway the plate and flatware he used.
Then I went one step further. I knew that Charles was interested in healing and prayer and meditation. I asked him if he would like me to do healing work with him. He said, "Yes."
By Nancy A. Carter
Open Hands
3
The first time I visited Charles, I asked him ifhe could think of a
healing image to focus upon, one he could use to counteract his
cancer. He had been diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin
cancer that is often associated with AIDS. For some people,
visualization of healing imagery in conjunction with medical
treatment has helped cancer go into remission. But he could not
think of an image.
Then I explained therapeutic touch, a type of laying on of
hands that I would use on him. I told him that many people often
experience a wann tingling sensation , especially in the area
where my hands were. Charles did not experience physical
feelings of wannth when I worked on him. Instead, unusually
vivid, colorful imagery came to him in the fonn of a windmill.
Windmills were common to his native state of Texas. He said
the windmill which appeared to him was standing on parched
land, but the wind was blowing and the windmill was drawing
up water from beneath the earth and was nourishing the dry
land. I told him the windmill was his healing image.
After I left, Charles and his partner David went out to the
store and bought tinker toys and built a windmill , which they set
up and kept in their living room. Most every time I worked with
Charles , the image of the windmill appeared to him . One time,
Charles said that he felt as if he were the base of the windmill
and I were the blades that were turning.
Once when I visited Charles, his feet were bruised and
colored blue from injections that had been given to him. He was
in pain and could barely walk to the bathroom because his feet
hurt so much. That day, when I did therapeutic touch on his
feet, he exclaimed, "I can feel heat! Now I know what you were
talking about."
A few days later, I received a letter from David thanking
me for the visit. He wrote that, after I had worked on Charles,
the pain had gone away enough that he had been able to walk out
to catch a cab for the hospital.
One day in October 1983, Charles began to cough. His
sister rushed him to the hospital. He had the dreaded pneumocystis
pneumonia that strikes so many people with AIDS.
They expected him to die that night, but the doctors caught the
pneumonia in time to arrest it. But that was the night I said
good-bye to him. As I thought of him, I remembered the windmill.
And I heard the strong rushing of wind .
Once a person asked me , when he heard that I had done
laying on of hands on someone with AIDS, if the man was still
alive. I said, "No , but he was healed." He died on December
26, 1983. The focus of my work with Charles was never on preventing
his death but on his healing. The windmill was a symbol
of his healing. The wind that helped the windmill bring up the
healing water was the Holy Spirit, the wind of God. Charles
suffered with AIDS, but he did not suffer the way that some do.
He had love, and he had.eourage that sustained him. Christ was
walking with him. Charles reached out to friends, and friends
reached out to him. Of course, some friends abandoned him,
but he had a strong supportive community, much of which was
based in the church. When he died, his partner was at his side.
In February 1987, I visited St. Peter's Lutheran Church in
Manhattan, which has a free supper for persons with AIDS and
others who wish to come on Tuesday night. That night, over
100 people were at the dinner: people with AIDS, their friends,
members of the church, a number of clergy, and volunteers who
helped to prepare the dinner. All these people mixed with each
other, so it was not obvious who had AIDS and who did not
have AIDS. The food was wonderful, and a person played dinner
music on the grand piano. But what was most impressive
Open Hands
was that the dinner was served on the church's best dinnerware, goblets, and silverware. There were no throwaway paper plates and plastic eating ware. What a beautiful thing this church was saying to a group of people who are often shunned. We are setting out our best dishes for you. We are sitting down and eating with you. We know that some people think that you are throwaway people.
D o you remember when the two travelers to Emmaus finally recognized Jesus? It was almost night, and they asked this supposed stranger to stay overnight with them. "When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him."
I believe that the reason that the two travelers recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread is that they finally really saw him and what he was about. He was not a warrior who would defeat the Romans. But he was a reconciler come to heal society's brokenness. That meant restoring those who were outcast and devalued to their proper place at God's table, whether or not the in-crowd liked it. A society that has outcasts is a broken society; a society that devalues the witness of certain groups of people is a broken society. For Jesus ' society, societal healing meant coming to tenns with the role of women in the religious community. It was no accident that women were the first ones to receive the news of the resurrection; they were particularly chosen because they were not held in high esteem. They too had a place at God's table.
Gayness was not looked on as a reason to exclude people at my church. That meant that my friend Charles felt free to share with us that he was ill and to ask us for support. And many of us did so in different ways.
People often ask me where I find hope in the midst of the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic. I respond that I don't place my hope in the discovery of a vaccine or a cure, though I hope these are discovered soon. I place my hope in those who are working together now not only to stop the spread of AIDS but also to put an end to homophobia, racism, sexism, poverty -types of brokenness that keep us from recognizing the Christ. But nevertheless Christ still walks with us in love. When a group of concerned people come together to talk about AIDS, I believe Christ is in the midst of us. And when I sit down to the table with a friend who has AIDS at my home or at a supper for people with AIDS, I see Christ sitting there also.
Nancy A. Carter, pastor ofEpworth UM Parish in Woodhaven, New York, and director ofpastoral care at Brooklyn UM Church Home, is coordinator of the AIDS Education Project for Prevention, Ministry, and Action of the N ew York Annual Conference.
4
• HIV, and thereby AIDS and ARC,
Otherwise unexplained swollen
A cquired Immune Deficiency Syncannot
be spread through casual contact.
drome (AIDS) is a life-threatening
glands (enlarged lymph nodes usually
As the U.S. Surgeon General's report on of otherwise healthy individuals. Almost disease that damages the immune system
in the neck, armpit, or groin) lasting
AIDS declares, "There is no evidence of
more than two weeks. all scientists agree that the disease is transmission ... of AIDS virus by every•
Pink or purple flat or raised blotches
day contact even [among] family members or lumps, usually painless, occurring
caused by a virus, the "human immuno[
of PWAs who] shared food, towels, on or under the skin, inside the mouth,
deficiency virus" or HIV. This virus pre-
cups, razors, even toothbrushes, and nose, eyelids, or rectum.
dominantly attacks the immune system,
kissed each other." infections effectively.
impairing the body's ability to fight off HIV is transmitted in specific ways:
• A persistent, often dry cough, not due
through sexual contact that results in thePersons with AIDS (PWAs) are susto
smoking and lasting too long to be
exchange of body fluids (especially semen ceptible to a wide variety of illnesses, indue
to a common respiratory infection.
or blood), by sharing intravenous drug cluding, most commonly, opportunistic infections such as Pneumocystis carinii paraphernalia, and by other blood-to-Persistent diarrhea.
•
blood contact. A pregnant or nursing coma, and neurological infections such as
pneumonia, cancers such as Kaposi's sar-
Shortness of breath that is new and
mother with HIV in her blood can also
•
getting worse.
transmit the virus to her unborn or new-neither new nor unique to people with
toxoplasmosis. While these illnesses are born child.
• Persistent white spots or unusual
Physical intimacy in and of itself blemishes in the mouth or throat.
AIDS, they are uncommon diseases that
does not cause AIDS. Such intimacy, like able to ward off successfully when ex-
most people who do not have AIDS are
emotional intim~cy, is important to a per-posed to them.
son's overall health. But, for expression of that intimacy to be safe as well as satisfying, it is important to know that specific risks are related to certain sexual practices. Condom use by a man during sexual intercourse is becoming recognized as one significant way to reduce the risk of HIV transmission .
What Is
Some other, nonsexual behavior patterns can apparently increase a per-son's likelihood of eventually developing AIDS or ARC if he or she is infected with HIV. Drugs and alcohol are thought by many researchers to be significant factors in compounding personal risk for AIDS. Not only may judgment be impaired by
AI OS7
substance abuse (increasing one's chances of engaging in unsafe sexual behavior), but the immune system may be compro-
The symptoms of AIDS, which may
mised as well. Poor nutrition, inadequate be mild or severe, often are similar in ap•
Ongoing neurological symptoms such
exercise and sleep, and excessive stress pearance to symptoms of other, more
as memory loss, vision disturbances,
can all act to weaken a person's immune common illnesses. The difference is that
and loss of coordination.
system, whether or not HIV is present in with AIDS, the symptoms do not disapthe
blood.
pear but instead often get worse with time.
More specific suggested guidelines
These symptoms may also signify
These symptoms include the following:
for risk reduction are commonly available
that a person has what is known as AIDS-related complex (ARC). This con-
from AIDS-assistance organizations (see • Unexplained, increasing, ongoing "Resources," p. 25) and local publicdition
seems simply to be AIDS in a less
fatigue.
health agencies. as severe and life threatening as AIDS.
acute form, although it may sometimes be
• Periodic or regular fever, shaking
ARC may eventually develop into AIDS,
chills, or night sweats not accomthough
it is not yet known how frequently
panied by a known illness and last-this occurs.
ing longer than several weeks.
• Weight loss that is unexplained and is
greater than approximately 10 pounds
in less than two months.
Open Hands 5
Lyle Loder was a leader ofAffirmation: United M ethodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns -serving on its national Coordinating Committee for several years and being a driving force behind Affirmation's presence in southern California. Throughout his life, he served in various leadership and service roles in the United Methodist Church, including being a "US-2" domestic missionary for the UMC from 1974 to 1976. Lyle felt a strong call to ordained ministry, but his revelation of himselfas a gay man kept him from following that track.
Lyle was diagnosed with AIDS in the fall of 1986, providing him with his final forum for ministry. He served faithfully on the steering committee for the UMC's National Consultation on AIDS Ministries. At that consultation, held in San Francisco November 12-15, 1987, Lyle movingly spoke to the participants about his life, his faith, and his illness. A few weeks later, on December 2 (two days after his 37th birthday), Lyle died.
We offer here an adapted excerptfrom Lyle's speech to the consultation. This is followed by brief reflections by Lyle's parents on their experience of having a son diagnosed with AIDS.
I don't care if you hear anything else, but it's a
fact that life and death have been laid before us and
we have to decide what we are going to do. I hope
that we will all choose life, but that's up to each of
us to decide. I don't care whether a person with
AIDS or anyone decides to sit and vegetate and wait
for death or whether they're going to be real active
and have a full and abundant life as I have tried to
do. The important thing is that we have to have people
decide what they're going to do, and I assume
that by your being here you have made some sort of
decision about that.
I simply found out from the doctor that I had
been diagnosed. I was diagnosed with PCP [pneu-
Quilt panel by Cliff Kolb and Karl Doerflinger
Choosing Life with Power
by Lyle Loder
mocystis carinii pneumonia]. Since then, [ have made some decisions about my life. That's very important because those decisions have to do with power. [ have decided that AIDS is not the decision-making influence in my life. To be sure, I have to live within particular kinds of limits, but it is not the deciding factor for me. I have learned that I have a powerof deciding what's going to happen with me; of medical care; of being abLe to decide about what I want to do and how to live my life . And my life is full .
I've got a good life . It's because of friends and of people. There are four or five people in my life right now who make all the difference. First, I have my parents. They have been absolutely wonderful in whatever way they can. We've talked about my death, and that's not easy to do, for parents to talk about the death of their youngest. They expect me to bury them and that may not be the way it works.
Another significant person in my life is my lover, Rob. Rob has proven to be one of the major support people in my life. He takes care of me helps with things like laundry, doing dishes, watering the plants. I wish I could tell you how wonderful he is and the kind of care he gives me.
I have other friends. One in particular is a sort of spiritual counselor for me. Dennis does a lot to keep me honest. Very frequently he'll sit down with me and say "Lyle, you're being a victim again." He kind of gets me on the straight and narrow again, and life goes on. His friendship is so powerful. He really gives me so much.
6 Open Hands
.0:1=-9990.····'·····",·,···""'·"999
Friends have played an important role for me. Cards, letters, and phone calls have all been signs of
caring. I have learned how significant these simple remembrances are, even when they begin with "I don't know what to say, but I want you to know I care." They have kept me from being alone. Being present is one of the most significant things you can do for anyone who has AIDS, or their families. Just to sit and talk.
I have also learned a lot about my faith. My faith has been made very real to me. And I have learned what sin is about. Paul Tillich talked about alienation, being separated from who we want to be, or from God. I have learned that indeed my AIDS keeps me from being who I want to be. And I have learned about grace. I experience grace when I awaken to another day; when the telephone rings and it is a friend calling to check in on me; when someone slips a hand into mine; when I participate in the Eucharist and taste the bread and the juice; when I feel that thrill deep within me that all is well in God's world in spite of my illness. All are instances of grace, and I sense what it means to be accepted by God and to be made whole.
I think that I am not afraid of death -at least I do not want to be. My hope is grounded in a faith stance best described by theologian Peggy Way, whom I recently heard paraphrased: the greatest power we have is the power to decide to whom we will give the power to define who we are.
I have decided that that power will not be given over to AIDS or to death. It is reserved and given over to the God whom I serve, the God of the living, the God who calls me to life with quality and abundance until that moment when my life is surrendered with dignity and integrity to the peaceful and eternal embrace of God's love.
After the Phone Call
by Paul and Ethyle Loder
O n that October day in 1986 when we received
Lyle's phone call telling us of his diagnosis with
AIDS, we were devastated. We had known for some
time of our son's gay orientation and had had no
problem accepting that. We had also heard and read a
lot about AIDS. Yet it still seemed unbelievable that
this disease could affect our own loved one.
Naturally, we were grief-stricken and terrified at what this meant for Lyle. We knew that it had to be awful dealing with the possibility of one's death at such a young age (Lyle was only 35 when the call came). And through our readings we knew that AIDS could be a very painful disease. Our hearts went out to Lyle. He was always aware of our great love, concern, and support.
Unfortunately, we were hindered by distance and our own physical problems. Lyle lived in the Los Angeles area, while our home is 1,400 miles away on a farm near the small town of Marquette, Kansas.
In addition to wanting to do all we could to help Lyle, we knew we were going to need support ourselves. At first, we were worried that getting this support might be difficult; AIDS in one's family is not the kind of subject one finds easy to talk about in a rural, fairly conservative area like ours. We had had no contact with any families who had dealt with AIDS, nor any knowledge of any support group. Local ministers were unsympathetic . Yet, as we shared news with family, friends, relatives, and other leaders of the United Methodist congregation we've belonged to for many years, love and s.uPport were given, with few exceptions. Our church share group was especially supportive in prayer and fellowship. We also found that we were not alone in our situation. For example, only 10 miles away from us was another family whose son in Los Angeles had AIDS.
Between the time of Lyle's diagnosis and his death 14 months later, Lyle made three trips home to see us. He was also planning to spend Christmas of 1987 with us. We never made it out to California after Lyle's call, but we had planned to go there in the fall of 1987. Lyle, however, wanted us to wait until the following February.
Of course, our son's death was hard for us; we still grieve for our loss. But Lyle's strong faith in his God, his love for the church, his life-long concern for the oppressed and underprivileged, our knowledge that his employers' insurance made the latest medical care and treatment (which kept suffering to a minimum) available to him -all this made his early departure somewhat easier.
The support we have continued to receive since Lyle's death has helped us immensely, too. At Lyle's funeral, the sanctuary in our small church building was filled to overflowing, as so many people -dear friends and family members, and people we'd never met -came to show their love for Lyle and for us. Since then, we have received many expressions of sympathy from people who were total strangers to us but whom Lyle touched at some point in his life.
Lyle always had such a loving, sunny, cheerful disposition, always upbeat, confident the disease would be overcome.
We know that his life truly was surrendered in dignity and integrity to the peaceful and eternal embrace of God's love.
Open Hands 7
ues
and People: The Church and the In the facing of this disease, pastors and chaplains will be
Pia AIDS Crisis
By Howard Moody
brought to the painful recognition
that caring is a lot more significant
than curing. It is concerned
~i~\~t
and expressed caring, not the promise of cure, than can bring The history of religion and distheologians and clergy argue about
hope out of helplessness. Doctors ease, particularly those that have whether the HIV virus comes
are having a lot harder time with been mysterious mass killers, is within God's will, we are faced
this plague because there is nothnot a pretty one. When religion with trying to understand this
ing they can do to cure, and for has not been claiming that "the awful plague that is wiping out
the physician, being a professional plague" was God's own personal our young at an alarming rate.
means being able to cure. AIDS punishment on some species or One aspect of this crisis that
is a terrible threat to the medical nationality in the human race, it makes it particularly troublesome
professional, and AIDS patients has been fairly certain that it was and problematic for the church is
are further distanced from doctors at least God's self-expression of
because there is no cure for their displeasure at some people's
the fact that the most susceptible
disease.
wanton pleasure.
people to this dreaded disease are
It may be that pastors and One might hope that we
those whom the church has perchaplains
will need to be adwould have outgrown this exsecuted,
ostracized, and read out
vocates before medical personnel planation, theologically and morof
the congregation of the acand
institutions in the face of a ally, by the end of the 20th cenceptable.
Their behavior has been
disease which carries so much tury. But with the onslaught of
criminalized by society. Even in
misinformation and so many disAIDS, religious folk are busy at it
the enlightened present, those who
tortions of the truth. One cannot again proclaiming how ticked off
are homosexual still bear the
express loving care for the patient God really is, not just at those
stigma of "deviant" and "perwithout
attacking with some zeal who are sexually "deviant," but at
verse."
the intolerance and bigotry that those who engage in sex outside
No wonder self-declared
makes more painful the effects of _carefully proscribed parameters of
prophets of God can see the
the disease. Are we ready to God's own created sexual order of
handwriting of God in the divine
mediate between a dying son and things.
decree of AIDS on people whose
parents who cannot accept the But even for those in the
life and activity is so repugnant to
homosexuality of their only child church who do not share the
God and God's people. The
-sons who can never go home "Religious Right's" belief in a
Church has an opportunity for
and wish to carry their secret to vengeful God who acts out of
penance in the challenge of AIDS,
their grave rather than hurt their antipathy in the fonn of personal
if we can only muster the courage
aging parents?
and social calamities, we still
and compassion of our Master to
Pastoral care of AIDS pahave a belief system that includes
make the divine mission of mercy
tients will test our integrity to the all kinds of disasters and catashigh
on the agenda of priorities.
hilt. It means that religious leadtrophes as part of the divine
I want to suggest several tasks
ers will have to deal with their pedagogy for the human race. As
that I believe the church in its
own genteel and unspoken homopastoral/
prophetic role may have.
8 Open Hands
We must also recognize that
Another example shows how
phobia at the same time they are
the very complexity and morbidity
"politics is nothing but medicine
trying to help an AIDS patient
of AIDS reveals the serious limits
on a large scale." In New York
overcome the self-loathing that
of medicine to change the course
City, the minority AIDS victim
comes from believing that the
of the biological world. The
dies on the average of 19 weeks
disease is punishment for his or
magic bullet theory of stopping
after diagnosis, while the life
her sexual orientation. It will
infectious organisms is false and
expectancy of a white AIDS victeach
us to confess that AIDS is a
misleading. Our faith in the abtim
is two years. This is due as
human disease and it is humanity
solute power of scientific medicine
much to a two-class medical systhat
is at risk.
to find cures for every ill and for
tem one for the poor and one
medicine to be completely free
for others as it is to a racist
from the cultural values and bebias
in our society .
BeYOnd the pastoral functions
liefs of the society in which it is
of ministry, church leaders have
practiced leads only to disilluanother
responsibility. The
sionment and even paranoia.
We must work to dispel the
church should take leadership to
Medicine is deeply emaccepted
wisdom that we are
help demythologize this disease .
bedded in social, economic, and
helpless before this plague. The
I am referring to the subtle rumor
political variables. It was only a
fact of the matter is that if we
that AIDS is caused by homofew
years ago that modem psyhave
the will, we could tum
sexuality or shooting heroin rather
chiatry decided that the state of
around the frightening and fatal
than by a retrovirus. It's a quick
being known as a homosexual was
statistics. If we offered universal
jump from there to assume the
not a "mental deformity" or
education on safe sex at .every age
way to cure the disease is not by
"emotional illness." All of us
level and repealed the tough neemedical
means but by moral recneed
to understand what Rudolf
dle laws, we would save the lives
titude. This view of the disease is
Virchow, the father of modem
of thousands of potential victims.
far too simplistic. It assumes
pathology, said about his profesThe
mythology is that we
each person's behavior is free
sion: "Medicine is a social science
can scare people out of and away
from external forces internal
in its very marrow and bone.
from drugs, homosexuality, and
and external, conscious and unPolitics
is nothing but medicine on
heterosexual promiscuity. We,
conscious, economic and social,
a large scale."
people of faith, know better than
many more powerful than the fear
Do we really believe that it
anyone else that you can't scare
of death. People drink, smoke,
is a medical decision not to give
people into "being good." It fiand
drive themselves to death in
clean needles to intravenous drug
nally won't work. The religious
staggering numbers each year in
users? Of course not, but most
institutions in this country have a
this country.
doctors, and clergy, and polimarvelous
challenge before them.
If we look at the history of
ticians would agree because it
There is only the slightest hint
venereal disease in this nation, we
would encourage "illegal drug
that we will be able to rise to the
will see that old scare tactics have
use." But AIDS is not caused by
occasion.
failed. Victim blaming and morinjecting
intravenous drugs. It is
alizing have not been effective
caused by reusing an infected
This article is reprinted by permission
public health mechanisms. We
hypodermic needle. In England
from the September 1987 issue of
must be honest and recognize that
and Canada, IV drug users are not
Missionworks: Reports from the Divithe
behavioral change we are
a high risk group. In the Nethsion
of the American Missionary Asseeking
does not mean encouragerlands,
only two AIDS cases
sociation of the United Church Board for
ing celibacy, heterosexuality, or
were reported among
Homeland Ministries of the United
morality. Rather, it means deAmsterdam's
7,000 to 8,000
Church ofChrist. Howard Moody is the
veloping means to avoid coming
addicts. In these countries, sterile
pastor of Judson Memorial Church in
into contact with the virus.
needles are easily available.
New York City.
Open Hands 9
in the Black Community
An Interview with Harold Burris
Harold 1. Burris, an ordained United Methodist minister, has been involved in AIDS planning and services since his moving to Washington, D.C., in 1983. As part of that work, he was director of, and consultant to, Schwartz Housing Services, a program through which the Whitman-Walker Clinic, Washington's Iesbianl gay clinic, provides housing for persons with AIDS. Previously, he worked for 13 years as a special consultant to the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Education Program of the U.S. Department of Education.
Burris currently is program director of IMPACT (the Intergroup Minority Project, AIDS Consortium, and Trust), an organization that does AIDS-education and social-services work with minorities in Washin!?ton, D.C.
In this interview with Open Hands co-editor Bradley Rymph, Burris describes special probLems and challengesfacing the Black community -and especially BLack churches -in dealing with AIDS. He also speaks ofthe changes aLready taking place in the Black church and of his hope for further progress in this drastically needed effort.
Why don't we start out by talking about what the general problems related to AIDS in minority communities are?
Well, the first and most alanning thing we're dealing with is the fact, unmistakable now, that the statistics are changing. Use Washington, D.C., for example. For so long, approximately 49% of the persons with AIDS here were minorities. That is now up to 53% and quickly approaching 55%. We have 12 children with full-blown AIDS in Washington, and all of them are minority.
Yet these Black persons with AIDS in Washington are not being served by anyone. I remember my first introduction to this issue was by a local physician who indicated to me his alarm that most of his minority patients came in for a diagnosis and then he didn't see them again until someone called for the signature on a death certificate. My experience over the last three years dealing with everything from families to PW As themselves to support services is that there is no indication whatsoever that the majority of minority AIDS patients are getting any
And by services you mean professional medical treatment as well as housing services, financial services, ...
Everything. A diagnosis with the disease has such traumatic effect and stigma in the minority community that there is no way that a family or an individual is going to do anything but cringe, fall apart, and go into some back roll. Then, with the traditional poor health background and lack of health insurance, there's little opportunity to have access to medical and social resources. Many of these people are already stigmatized by having been on welfare or having some contributions to their lives from social services, so to have one more stigma -and a stigma that has morality, sexuality, and social judgment on itis just something they can't take.
The average White, middle-class gay man in a large city like Washington is not living at home. He has moved here from Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, California, wherever. The average gay Black man has moved down the street, if he's moved anywhere. Mother, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family persons are all around him. Coming out is in many cases not an option. Even when it is an option, it is done very cautiously. So that to be seen in the city utilizing these resources is a difficult situation. For the White gay male, Washington is an escape from wherever he grew up, from the family setting and all the rest, the church inclusive. But for the Black gay male, this is generally home. For the IV-drug user, it is absolutely home. An IV user doesn't move from city to city even as much as gay people.
Another statistic also disturbs me. The local gay male clinic for VD and syphilis has virtually closed down. But, where once this was a 90% White clinic, it is now a 99% Black clinic. *The danger is that we have minority people who somehow don't believe that this is a serious matter and are still involved in unprotected sexual practices.
*Editor's note: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported earlier this year that, during the first 46 weeks of 1987, syphilis cases among White gay menfell by 34% nationally, while the number ofcases among Black gay men increased by 6%. However, the number ofcases among all people in the United States -heterosexual and homosexuaL, male
services or seeking those services. andfemale -rose by 32%.
10 Open Hands
Why do you think that is?
I think it ha a lot to do with culture, and especially a culture of all minority groups, whether they be Black, Hispanic, you name it. Cultures that are oppressed place a high premium on masculinity as a matter of production and saving the culture. I think that Blacks have long thought that using condoms, using anything artificial in sexual behavior, demeans it, or as I heard a young lady say , "changes my nature." There is still a strong belief that any control in terms of sexual practices is counter to being a strong masculine or female person. And many heterosexual women don 't want their men to use a condom because it doesn't "feel right."
Now, I think we have to be honest. It doesn't feel right to gay males either. They 're using condoms because there is a high priority on life. We've got to raise that priority with other people. AIDS education has to be honest about these facts. You have to sell people the idea of risk and not the idea that safe sex is something that's going to be more pleasurable than what they have been doing. Don't try to make it some glamorous thing when it's not.
You've referred to some statistics for Washington, D.C. Is it fair to assume that the statistics are similar nationally, especially in urban areas?
Oh, sure. And I'm sure that the statistics have never been
up to par in urban areas because, as the doctor said, so many
cases are diagnosed and the next time you see them they're
dead. And who's going to determine that they ' ve got AIDS
when they're dead unless somebody is requesting it. You 've
got to understand that in the Black community autopsies are not
respected or a predominant thing. I'm sure we've buried many a
young person for a long time with AIDS who will never be diagnosed
as such.
Now there's a bigger issue that we've got to look at. And
that is the issue that the Black church is basically conservative,
fundamentalistic, and has not dealt well , historically or
presently, with any sexuality. Anybody who knows anything
about the Black church would not expect it to be able to deal effectively
with what is still seen there as a "gay disease." I mean, it is no wonder that the mouths of most of our ministers keep quiet.
This includes the whole spectrum. There is no part of the minority church that I know of that in any way has a broad perspective on human sexuality and moral issues. They're very tight, very judgmental, and very traditional. It just doesn't bode well for dealing with an issue like AIDS.
How realistic is it to hope that Black churches might become more positively involved, or do you just have to develop ways to go around the Black church?
You have to face that that's where we are and begin working. I see changes in Washington. I see ministers struggling to find new ways. What AIDS has done is that it has taken Black churches, Black ministers, and slammed them against the walls and said morality is not about who you've been sleeping with last night; morality is about lifestyle. Morality is about life and death now -not because somebody might catch you sleeping with someone and shoot you, but because you might live and die from the suffering of AIDS. This kind of context makes it a whole different world.
It's painful for people to have to walk out from this, preachers particularly, and say to congregations, "Hey, you've got to look differently at this. Your children, my Children, you, me, are in a different world." It takes time to say that. We've got to help people through education, programs, training , and all the rest to deal with this.
Black people don't hate gays. They don 't know how to deal with it in the context of their religion and their morality. They love gay people as persons, but they have no context in which to deal with it wholesomely.
So what kind of help and programs are needed?
One of the things that we 're doing with IMPACT is developing a program of training pastors here in Washington, taking a group of 12 to 14 at a time and working with them in sessions to do several things: to first, look at AIDS for what it is; secondly, to be better pastors to persons with AIDS ; thirdly, to introduce AIDS education into their churches' education programs; and fourthly , to extend that education to their adults and to their community.
That's asking a lot of them. And you can't ask it individually . You've got to ask it in groups because people cannot go out on a limb by themselves and be destroyed. They must have some support system. We are planning to have that support system by not only training them and giving them the best resources we have but by also giving them technical assistance in the process.
In general , AIDS work in the minority community isn't being done adequately any place around the country. One of the pioneers who has tried to do something is the Rev. Carl Bean in Los Angeles. He has had one of the first minority AIDS programs in the country and always attaches-to it training and educatioil for clergy persons. A second pioneer was here in Washington, Dr. James Tinney, who died recently. He had the first seminars for clergy persons on AIDS, I believe, in this country. He had so much skill and resource which he shared with people, and he really provided the groundwork through which many of us others will go.
Open Hands 11
The fact that these men have raised the issue of AIDS is what's important. Certainly they have had to step out of the mainstream of the church to do it, and that's tragic. But I don't find many folk in the mainstream of any churches, period, and less in the Black churches, raising the issue. These men were willing to risk, to surrender.
If you were to go to a pastor or a deacon of a Black church and say "What you most need to do now in relationship to AIDS in your community is __," what would you say?
Relate to one person. I have a wonderful experience of a church where that happened. When I was in housing services, I had a problem with a young Black man who -caught in the crossfires of his physical pain and his emotional traumas -just couldn't be dealt with. I asked this church for some help, and they sent over a deacon. I will never forget this 60-, 65-year-old man coming up there to sit down with us and try to mediate, work out, put his prejudices aside -all that he'd lived with and believed all his life to get to be respected as a deacon. And he had to put it all aside to deal with this situation. That man is a light of lights in that congregation, and we were invited back later to do an education seminar in that church around AIDS.
I don't think we changed the church; don't be confused. But that we were in there, and that I could talk about all the issues, was miraculous in itself. It does happen. Go in with one person, one human need, and give somebody the opportunity to know one person, and that will make a difference.
Understand that I don't believe that, because we have IMPACT, we're going to make miracles and change the world. We just want to make a few steps. We just want to take a few lives out of the grips of pain and hell and despair and make them better.
Let's go back to my working with mostly White gays in AIDS housing services. I was a Black clergy person coming out of a Black community. But I believe every person deserves to live and die in dignity. And the one thing I know that I pushed for everybody was that I don't care who you are or what you did; you have the right, the need, the opportunity, to live whatever life you have before you in the grandest dignity possible. And no person on the earth has the right under God to demean you or deny you less than the best. And that means less than the best of medical resources, social resources, housing resources.
Nobody has made me God. Nobody has told me that I have the right to cut somebody down, because who knows -it's not just the selfishness of who knows where I'll end up, but it is the selfishness of knowing that all of us are children of God. That's the ultimate nature of us all.
And that's all I have to say to them. And I have to fight for that sometimes. It's damn painful, but that's what you have to fight for .
WODlenand
Fighting]
Although AIDS is often seen as a gay male disease, women are making up a growing percentage of the total reported AIDS cases. Epidemics always seem to hit the poorer populations the hardest, and this one is no different. Poor Black and Hispanic women have much higher rates of death from AIDS than their Anglo sisters.
The reality of women and AIDS today is usually hidden from us. For example, a recent cover story on "AIDS and the Single Woman" in People magazine carried photos of 14 women with AIDS, two of whom were Black and two of whom were Hispanic. The reality is that the great majority of women with AIDS are Black or Hispanic. Some AIDS education films picture a woman in despair over her baby dying of AIDS -a tragic scene. Even more tragic, however, is the fact that no mention is made that the woman herself must also have AIDS to have transmitted the disease to her infant before birth. Her disease is invisible; only the tragedy of the child counts.
Where you live and what you read affects how you perceive the crisis . In California and Texas, AIDS is over 90 percent a gay male disease. However, in New York City, AIDS is the
leading cause ofdeath for women between the ages of 25 and 34. Twenty-two percent of New York City women contracted the virus from infected men, not infected needles. The number of children with AIDS increased 50percent in the past year. Seventy-six percent ofthese AIDS children are black or Latino. I
AIDS is a disease of gay men, and of women, and of children, and of minority people .
Economic realities often force women into invisibility with their health concerns. Women are frequently unable to secure adequate health care for themselves and their children. Especially women at increased risk for AIDS (usually poor and non-White) must often rely on already overburdened health facilities that lack the time and resources to provide adequate diagnosis and treatment.
12 Open Hands
AIDS: Invisibllity
By M. Burrill
When a women does have access to medical care, it may not necessarily address her particular needs. The medical community is just beginning to acknowledge that HIV infection may appear differently in women than in men. As a recent article in Ms. magazine points out:
States and cities with heavy concentrations ofAIDS are experiencing dramatic increases in the number of deaths of women from a variety of respiratory and infectious diseases thought to be AIDS-related, but not included in the Centersfor Disease Control's definition ofAIDS. These increases ... indicate that in the communities hardest hit so far by AIDS, the deaths of women may be significantly undercounted because many do not survive long enough to develop or be diagnosed as having the ''full-blown'' AIDS usedfor official case counts. In addition, AIDS may manifest itself differently in women, often first appearing as a gynecological disease. 2
Not only is it a problem that AIDS may not be properly diagnosed in women, but the disease may cause different opportunistic infections in women than in men. The protocol that defined AIDS initially was derived from treatment of gay men and male IV drug users. We are beginning to see that AIDS in women may manifest itself very differently. For example, Kaposi's sarcoma, the skin cancer often seen in male AIDS patients, is rarely seen in women. On the other hand, gynecological diseases commonly found in HIV -infected women are not included in the official definition of AIDS. Are we wearing blinders that allow us only to see what is happening in the "male world"? At what point are women taken into account in the total picture of AIDS?
The health care system is not the only place where the skewed attitudes towards women and AIDS are reflected. Even though tracking the spread of AIDS in this country has consistently revealed that men are most responsible for the spread of the disease, the strong belief persists that women are dangerous transmitters of the disease. As a recent article in OffOur Backs noted:
Despite the indisputable fact that AIDS is primarily a male-vectored disease, male researchers persist in viewing women as carriers dangerous to men rather than as victims to men ... In the U.S. men pass the [AIDSJ virus to women far more often than women to men. Semen is a far more effective medium than vaginal fluids. 3
Attitudes of women themselves affect the AIDS situation in two ways. First, women are often the ones who worry about the practice of "safe sex" in a relationship. As with issues of birth control, she is the one who is at increased risk. Often a woman is put in the position of weighing her access to the man's comparative wealth and the security it provides against her desire for safe sex and his unwillingness to use a condom.4 Women with little power in their relationships feel unable to jeopardize the immediate well-being of themselves and their children by demanding "safe sex" for some seemingly mythical protection from a disease that might strike them 10 years hence.
Second, low-risk women seem to be the ones that worry the most about getting AIDS. The women with the greatest access to accurate information and adequate health care are not the ones getting the disease. Ifwe allow low-risk women's needs to dominate the picture, it diverts attention from the very desperate needs for education, social services, and health care for lowincome minority women -the high-risk women. 5
Our attitudes and AIDS-phobia also contribute to a tendency to exaggerate. Off Our Backs explained: "To read most manuals and pamphlets on safe sex, it would seem that a sexually active woman has to rubberize or risk death at every encounter and that all women in all relationships are at equal risk. This is both simplistic and inaccurate.,,6 Non-drug-using women in monogamous relationships with men who are not bisexual or IV drug users are not at great risk of contracting AIDS. Neither are lesbians. The incidence of AIDS "is lower in the lesbian populations than in other groups and it is unlikely that even seropositive women could easily transmit the virus to another woman.,,7 Taking responsibility for our own lives (and it is a life and death matter) includes knowing facts and myths, distinguishing between them, and acting accordingly.
An of this has implications about how we address the issues involved with women and AIDS. AIDS education needs to be targeted to high-risk women . All of us need to examine and reexamine our attitudes about AIDS and, specifically, women and AIDS. We must not let our prejudices exacerbate the problem. We have to challenge the invisibility and misperceptions of those around us about women and AIDS. We need to be in dialogue about these issues. We need to be accurately informed.
Unfortunately , what we think we know about AIDS determines social policies that touch us everywhere we live -the government and public health; medicine and the Hippocratic oath; civil liberties and mandatory testing; immigration; the church and gays; the bishops and condoms; network TV and commercials for contraceptives; how we collect blood, administer prisons, license marriages, apply for insurance, educate our children, and look into our mirror. s
We need to call on our broadest definitions of inclusiveness and apply them to the AIDS crisis. We need to expand our views of AIDS as a "gay disease" to AIDS as a disease of people. As we stretch these boundaries, we will help the invisible -women with AIDS -become more visible.
NOTES
1 John Leonard, "Straight Facts, Homophobia and Heterosexual
Anxiety Twine to Create AIDS Madness," Ms., June 1988, p. 32.
2 Chris Norwood, "Alanning Rise in Deaths, Are Women Showing
New AIDS Symptoms?" Ms. , July 1988, p. 65. 3 Linda Anderson and Samantha Winchester, "AIDS: Between Rubber
and Reason," Off Our Backs, April 1988, p. 12. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid, p. 13. 8 Leonard, p. 33.
M. Burrill is co-editor o/Open Hands and a director o/Christian education.
Open Hands 13
AIDS: OPPORTUNITI
AIOS on Retreat
The fact that AIDS is one of the most devastating diseases of this century IS overwhelming. As persons of faith called to reach out in love wherever there is a need, we struggle to avoid our own paralysis in the face of this frightening virus. In rising to meet the challenges posed by AIDS, a smorgasbord of opportunities for minIstry is available. The short pieces that follow contain a sampling of that fare Including indivIdual ministry with persons with AIDS (PWAs), instItutions organizing to provide housing and help for PWAs, an AIDS retreat, and a whole host of suggestions for congregations asking "What can we do7" This serves not as an exhaustive list of possibilities but as yeast to provide leaven for your loaf of ministry
By Bill Lasher
W hen we think of a retreat, we think of peaceful nature settings, hiking with friends, or s~tting around the fire. We usually do not thmk of persons with AIDS. The Troy Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (which includes Vermont and the northeastern part of New York state) is expanding visions of what a retreat can be through their camping program for persons with AIDS. The Troy Conference is a small conference of predominantly small churches in rural or small town settings in a politically conservative area. Its camping program has a long and successful history, with a program that includes some outof-the-ordinary provisions. For instance, a recent fund drive stipulated that 5% of the monies raised be given to a "partner" Methodist camp in Brazil, and the Board of Camps and Conferences was challenged to develop camping programs to address the needs of persons not usually served by that program. Out of this last provision grew the idea for a retreat for persons with AIDS. Two actions of significance here were taken by the 1987 annual conference session. It voted to become a Reconciling Conference, and it upheld the Board of Camps and Conferences in their plans t.o sponsor a "Quality of Life" retreat expenence for persons with AIDS. The AIDS Council of Northeastern New York helped to develop the retreat, and funding was provided by the Conference Council on Ministries, the Albany Synod of the Presbyterian Church USA, and individual gifts and local church donations. The objectives of the program were to offer hospitality in a safe and loving space and to listen to what persons with AIDS have to say to us as they come to terms with life, illness, and possible death.
The five-day event was held in August at one of the conference retreat fac.il~ties. Twelve persons with AIDS particIpated. Topics for discussion, recreational activities, and scheduling were planned by the participants in advance and during the retreat itself. Such involvement created trust and credibility between sponsors and participants. Ownership and enthusiasm for the retreat grew with their involvement.
At the retreat itself, a community spirit of trust, caring, and o~e?ness quickly developed. For mo~t p~rtlclpants who had experienced the rejectIOns of the church, community, and, in some cases, family and friends, this experience ~as one of healing and hope. Personal stones of sorrow, pain, joy, and triumph were shared.
The retreat was a success. The objectives were met, and the lives of the participants and leaders were enriched. S~veral participants have become more active in the work of the AIDS Council. Another person, who participated in the planning but was too ill to attend, spoke of the retreat before his death in October as a significant event in his life. The date is set, and plans are proceeding with the AIDS Council and with possible participants for a second "Quality of Life" retreat in 1988.
Sponsoring this event was not without difficulties. Hysteria and poor information about AIDS and the risks involved were legion. Conference leaders, local churches, and camp staff asked many questions and expressed many concerns. Neighbors to the retreat center were not given enough advance notice of the plans and objectives of the retreat. .
We have learned from our expenence and look forward to a smoother process in the future as we continue this ministry with a very special group of persons.
Bill Lasher is council director of the Troy Conference Council on Ministries in Saratoga Springs, New York.
14 Open Hands
I
IES FOR MINISTRY
When AIDS Come:,;s~~~~, Home to Us
By Nancy A. Carter
Allover the United States, AIDS has "come home" to our communities. Churches are asking, "What should we do?" Although many people may not heard it at least three times! In every an individual's fear of "catching" homoyet know a person with AIDS, most of us group, there are always people who do not sexuality. The racist fear that persons of know a family member of someone who know what AIDS is and how it is transcolor are "dangerous" may be interminhas AIDS or has died from it, whether we mitted. gled with the fear of AIDS as "dangerare aware of it or not. Most of us have ous." AIDS becomes a means to extend read, seen, and heard media reports about • Fear reduction -By stating facts individual and institutional discriminaAIDS and have worried whether or not we about AIDS, educators seek to reduce tion. or one of our loved ones might be at risk people's irrational fears about AIDS. for getting the disease. No matter what our "No, we do not get AIDS from toilet seats, • Risk reduction -The purpose of this age, sex, race, or sexual orientation, we drinking fountains, and door knobs ..." is to help us change our behavior to reduce all need to be concerned about this crisis Even when some people hear facts, they our risk of contracting AIDS. And I mean and the many facets of society it affects. still are afraid. All of us at one time or "us" here -church people, too. Like
Churches have responded to the AIDS crisis from many different beginning points. The pastor or a lay person raises a concern for persons with AIDS at prayer time during worship. A member asks the congregation to volunteer and/or contribute to work of an AIDS service organization. The pastor uses an illustration about AIDS in a sermon; later a church family decides to share its pain about one of its relatives who died from AIDS. A youth or adult study group asks for educational sessions on AIDS and sexuality. Or someone announces during sharing time that she or he has AIDS. Especially in this last case, AIDS has come home in the most dramatic way.
Ideally, a church should educate itself about AIDS before someone in the congregation develops the disease. Education should involve a number of basic components.
• Presentation ofmedical facts -This is essential, not just once but over and over. Most people do not assimilate the most basic information about how people get and do not get AIDS until they have another have irrational fears about AIDS. This type of fear is termed "AFRAIDS." Thank people for being honest about their fears; encourage them to share their true feelings. If persons are simply repeating ignorant rumors, you may need to be more firm. Reiterate the basic facts, and include stories of people relating positively to people with AIDS.
Another way to reduce fear is to invite people who know persons with AIDS to talk. The presence of a person with AIDS can help, although sensitivity to the possibility that some individuals in the group may react negatively is important. In the long run, personal contact with persons with AIDS is the best way to help eliminate "AFRAIDS."
• Combating societal ills -An educational event can give information about how the AIDS crisis intensifies such long-term societal illnesses as homophobia, racism, sexism, and economic injustice~ Another level of irrational fear related to AIDS can be present -a fear based on homophobia and/or racism. The fear of "catching" AIDS may be related to most human beings, we tend to deny that we need to change our behavior. It's easier to focus on "other people out there" or "our teenagers" and not take responsibility for ourselves.
Even when people know the facts about AIDS, they may not change risky behavior. Use of role plays and other experiential exercises are helpful.
• Self-determination -Involving the group itself in deciding the best way to do prevention education is preferred. One pastor invited the "grandmothers" of her church to meet with her to discuss AIDS. The grandmothers decided upon a number of actions, including holding a "safer sex" party for themselves, which would later be replicated for younger members! Selfdetermination was one of the keys to the success of the educational campaign in the gay male community.
• Exploring theological and spiritual models of health and wholeness -As Christians within this crisis, we need to
(continued on page 16)
Open Hands 15
A I DS : OPPORTUNITI
(continued from page 15)
look at the relationship of sin and sickness. Various traditions in the Bible and church history equate sin and sickness. Some, citing these traditions, have asserted that AIDS is God's judgment. Life does not confirm that sickness equals sin. Job found that out. Jesus corrected people's ideas about why a man was born blind. We only need to reflect on our own experience to realize that sickness cannot always be equated with sin. Study and dialogue can bring to light biblical and church traditions that give more complex understandings of sickness.
• Affirmation of sexuality -The church has not had a good record of living out the affirmation that human sexuality is a good gift from God. We need to examine Christian viewpoints on human sexuality and our attitudes towards lesbian and gay people. AIDS has been used by some to reinforce negative attitudes toward sexual activity, particularly gay and lesbian sexual activity. Churches need to affirm human sexuality and also to be inclusive of all persons.
Churches can resource educational events in a number of ways. Some have members already well versed on the issues. Others bring together a small program planning group that studies printed and audiovisual resources and talks to people familiar with AIDS education before doing their own event. Others contact the nearest AIDS service organization, health department, hospital, or Red Cross for assistance. Some church agencies or jurisdictions have AIDS task forces that provide or suggest speakers.
Publicize your event. Don't underestimate interest. Many people will come to an AIDS education event at church because they feel safe talking about a scary topic there. Recently I was told to expect maybe a dozen persons at an event; over 40 came. The minister and the planning committee were surprised.
A desired outgrowth of education is involvement in ministry and action. One large suburban church, after holding six
16 Open Hands
sessions on AIDS, decided to consider becoming a Reconciling Congregation (RC). Becoming an RC equips a church to deal with one societal illness intensified by the AIDS crisis -homophobia. People still regard AIDS as a "gay disease." Homophobia causes persons with AIDS and/or their families to suffer in secret rather than tell their church that they or one of their relatives has been infected with AIDS. In an affirming church, persons are more likely to share their pain.
Other actions may involve the worship
and service life of the church. An
easily accomplished first step includes
remembering persons with AIDS and their
loved ones and caretakers in prayer. One
church lights a green candle of life and
hope in the midst of the AIDS crisis.
Another church held four Advent services
on the theme of hope, healing, and AIDS.
A church can contribute to an AIDS
project, which may be church sponsored
or run by an AIDS service organization.
Members can volunteer for AIDS service
organizations, if these are nearby. One
church packs "safer sex" kits, which are
distributed by the local AIDS organization
to drug addicts. Another church provides
office space for the newly formed Women
and AIDS Resource Network. Church
members can volunteer at hospitals, visiting
persons with AIDS or cuddling babies
with AIDS. A church can do AIDS education.
It can distribute literature about
AIDS in its information rack. It can encourage
school boards to do appropriate
AIDS education at all age levels. The list
of "beginning" actions is endless. Choose
an approach that is appropriate to your
group.
The Gospel calls us to love and care for one another. As AIDS "comes home" to our communities and churches, we can respond through education and action.
Nancy A. Carter, pastor of Epworth UM Parish in Woodhaven, New York, and director ofpastoral care at Brooklyn UM Church Home, is coordinator ofthe AIDS Education Project for Prevention, Ministry, and Action of the New York Annual Conference .
Person
To
Person
By Sally Daniel
When I began to be Involved
w ith AIDS ministry they assigned
me one AI DS patient at a time I'd
pick up [the case] at whatever pOint
I was assigned and carry It through
the death, the funeral, and time
with the family afterwards In some
cases, the family learned their son
was gay the day they learned he
was gOing to dlel And that's when I
got cal led In
When I w as assigned my fi rst AIDS patient, I really didn't know what in the world I w as gOing to do. I knew that hiS mother had Just learned that he w as gay and was going to die. I had to drive qUite a long way to see him, and I w as getting more and more nervous and anxious "What am I gOing to do, what am I gOing to say?"
I walked Into the room, and there he w as, lying on the bed I Just took him Into my arms, and we cned together We'd never met he didn't know who I was And strangely enough, that's what's happened ever Sl nee
Many of the AIDS patients I dea l With have been told they're no good. Their pastors or priests have kicked them out of the church. I am there to affirm that they are not rotten, no-good sinners I affirm they are children of God, loved children of GOd. I have to walk into their rooms and be the ChrISt figure.
Sally Daniel is pastor of Grant Park Aldersgate UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Atlanta. Excerpted with permission from the video "Casting Out Fear. " See RCP Report, this issue, for details.
CHURCHES
BIND
T IES FOR MINISTRY
TOGETHER
By J. Delton Pickering
The AIDS Interfaith Network of Baltimore was founded in August 1985 by a group of laity and clergy and quickly adopted goals related to pastoral care, education, advocacy, and residential serv ices for persons with AIDS (PW As). Committees were formed around each of these areas to shape policies and to implement programs. The residential services committee, chaired by Don Miller, a Roman Cathobc gay activist and a person with AIDS, initially
focused on the need for hospice care for PW As. In April 1986, the committee issued a report that included a survey of all the hospice programs in metropolitan Baltimore. The survey found that five programs offered their services to PWAs, while four did not. None of the programs, however, was geared to providing PW As with the quality of care the committee deemed appropriate.
In light of this, the AIDS Interfaith Network issued a call to the religious community to provide a free-standing hospice specifically for persons with AIDS. The report stated:
The religious community is called to be a healing force ... assuring the care of the sick and dying, ministering to the grief of family and friends. People of faith must move to ensure that persons with AIDS are enabled to die with dignity and that trained people are available to minister to the bereaved.
To place their proposals before the religious community, in addition to a press conference, news releases , and correspondence, the committee requested agenda time at one of the bimonthly meetings of major religious leaders in the Baltimore area. Working through the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council (CMEC), a respected ecumenical organization in the region, the committee members found a receptive ear.
They proposed that an interfaith project focusing on residential care for PW As be developed under the auspices of CMEC. The first stage of the project was the development of small residential units (apartments or homes) for PWAs. These were to be located in scattered sites throughout the metropolitan area. The second stage was to explore the development of a "full-blown, free-standing hospice" as the need for hospice care became more acute.
The group was bold enough to lay out a first year's budget of approximately $70,000, complete with suggestions as to the amount each faith group was to contribute. The amounts ranged from $20,000 for the Roman Catholic archdiocese and $15 ,000 for the United Methodists to several hundred dollars for the small denominations. The denominational leaders, anxious to find a way that the religious community 'could demonstrate its compassion, agreed both to the project and the budget. Since that date, the Jewish community has joined the project to assure that it is in fact an inteifaith response to the AIDS crisis.
With the imprimatur of the religious community, AIDS Interfaith Residential Services (AIRS) moved quickly to develop a governing board and to hire a project director. Several months later, the Sisters of Mercy released one of their members (a nun who had been related to the AIDS Interfaith Network from the beginning) to serve as coordinator of patient services for the project. Soon, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps sent a young man to serve as coordinator of volunteers.
The first residence was opened in March 1988 and was named, appropriately, the Don Miller House. Don Miller first conceptualized this program and devoted enormous energy to seeing that it was developed. A week before he died from AIDS on March 15, he was informed that the first residence was to be named in his honor. The Don Miller House now has its first occupants: a previously homeless young mother who has AIDS and her two daughters, one of whom has ARC. A second apartment in the house is being readied for three single men.
The project is moving rapidly toward the opening of other houses and apartments. Representatives of the sponsoring religious groups have pledged the budget for a second year and have given indications that they will continue this ministry for the long haul. Jews, Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Quakers, Unitarians, United Methodists, and other Protestant denominations in Baltimore have demonstrated that the religious community can join collaboratively to reach out with compassion and care to persons with AIDS.
J. Delton Pickering is executive director of Ecumenical Campus Ministry. Inc .. and chairs the Steering Committee of the AIDS Interfaith NetIVork of Baltimore.
Open Hands 17
When A Loved One Has AIDS ...
... Offer to do household chores, perhaps taking out the laundry
While serious Illness IS a fact of
washing dishes, watering plants,
everyday life, AIDS poses new challenges
feeding and walking pets. This may
for everyone involved; not only Individuals
be appreciated more than you realize. with AIDS, but also their friends and However, ask before doing anything. family members People who are in the Don't do what your loved one wants prime of their lives have become III, and and can do for him/herself. their prospects for a long life may be ... Keep any promises you make.
severely affected Their situation is not an
Tell your loved one what you'd like to
isolated one, but is shared by people
do to help. If he/she agrees to your close to them
request do it.
When someone you know becomes I II,
... Check in with your loved one 's
especially with a serious Illness like AIDS,
lover, spouse, care-partner, or
you may feel helpless or Inadequate
roommate. They may need a break Here are some thoughts and suggestions from time to time. Offer to care for that may help you to help someone who the person with AIDS in order to give IS ill. the loved one some free time. Remember, they may need someone to talk with as well.
... Try not to avoid your friend. Be ... Don't allow your loved one or
there -it instills hope. Be the loved the care-partner to become isolated.
one you've always been, especially
... Celebrate holidays and life by
Let them know about the support now when it is most important.
offering to decorate the home or
groups and other concrete, practical hospital room. Bring flowers or other
services offered without charge by ... Ask if it is okay to visit. Let your
special treasures. Include your loved
organizations and agencies in your loved one make the decision. He/she
one in holiday festivities. A holiday
area.
may not feel up to a visit that day.
doesn't have to be marked on a
You can always visit on another
calendar; you can make any day a occasion. Now is a time when your ... Ask for a shopping list
holiday.
friendship can help keep loneliness and make a home delivery. and fear at a distance.
... Your loved one may be a parent.
Ask about the children. Offer to help
... Touch your loved one. A simple
care for them.
squeeze of the hand or a hug can let
him or her know that you care.
... Be creative. Bring books,
periodicals, taped music, a poster for ... Spend time sharing a meal. Call
the wall, home-baked cookies or and say you would like to bring a delicacies to share. Any of these can favorite dish.
bring warmth and joy.
... Go for a walk or outing, but ask ... Transportation may be needed to about and know your loved one's a treatment to the store or bank, to limitations.
the physician, or perhaps to a movie. How aboutjust a ride to the beach or ... Offer to help answer any the park?
correspondence which may be giving
some difficulty or which your loved
... Send a card that says simply, "I one may be avoiding.
care!"
18 Open Hands
~ It's okay to ask about the illness,
but be sensitive to whether your loved T Be gentle, yet remember, never
one wants to discuss it. You can find lie. Tell your loved one how good
out by asking, "Would you like to talk he/she looks, but only if it is realistic.
about how you're feeling?" However, If your loved one's appearance has
don't pressure. changed, don't ignore it.
T Respond to your loved one's T Do not confuse acceptance of
emotions. Weep when he/she weeps. the illness with defeat. This
Laugh when your loved one laughs. acceptance may free your loved one
It is healthy to share intimacy. It and give a sense of his/her power.
enriches you both.
T You don't always have to talk.
T Like everyone else a person with Much can be expressed without
AIDS can have both good and bad words. Sit together, silently reading,
days. On the bad days, however, listening to music, watching television,
treat your loved one with extra care holding hands.
and compassion.
T Ask if you could pray together. T Be prepared for your loved one Ask if they wish to talk about feelings to get angry with you for "no obvious about God. Read the Bible and
reason," although it feels that you've helpful devotional books.
been there and done everything you
COUld. Remember, anger and T Finally, take care of yourself.
frustration are often taken out on Recognize your own emotionS"' and
people most loved because it's safe honor them. Share your grief, anger,
and will be understood. feelings of helplessness or whatever is
coming up for you with others.
T Don't lecture or direct your anger Getting the support you need during at your loved one if he/she seems to this crisis will help you to be there for be handling the illness in a way that your loved one. you think is inappropriate. You may not understand what the feelings are
T Bring a positive attitude. It's and why certain choices are made.
catChing!
T Keep your loved one up to date
on mutual friends and other common
interests. You both may be tired of
talking about symptoms, doctors, and
treatments.
T What's in the news? Discuss
"When A Loved One Has AIDS" is reprinted
current events. Help keep your loved
with permission/rom a pamphlet published by the
one from feeling that the world is
United Church Board/or Homeland Ministries .
passing him or her by. Copies 0/ this pamphlet may be purchased at $.10 per copy from UCBHM. J32 W. 3 Jst Street. New York. NY 1000J .
T Encourage your loved one to make decisions. Illness can cause a loss of control over many aspects of life. Don't deny your friend a chance to make decisions, no matter how simple or silly they may seem to you.
T Talk about the future tomorrow, next week, next year. It's good to look toward the future without denying the reality of today.
Open Hands 19
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
A Yom Hashoa
In ancient Hebrew, Yom Hashoa meant a "burnt offering." In more modern times, Yom Hashoa has come to symbolize the remembrance of those who died during the Holocaust. Yom Hashoa is celebrated 40 days after Passover/Easter.
CALL TO WORSHIP
We come to this service with so many needs and longings. We have been on different journeys, and conceived many different thoughts.
But underneath it all is the same basic need for love and acceptance. That is why we are here -to confess to each other our need for love from one another -even in the abiding presence of God's love.
God, lay the sustaining spirit of your love on us as we come to remember those living and no longer living with AIDS. Let us feel the liberating power of your love which calls us into new roles of compassion and outreach.
LITANY Leader: We are called to go where we would not go -to places of suffering and death -and places of remembrance. People: We are called like the prophets, like Daniel and like Esther, to right a wrong, to cry out for our people who are dying. Leader: In the midst of the holocaust, I saw the Ancient One in the faces of my fathers and mothers who went before me to face the forces of selfrigh teousness. People: In the midst of the flame, I saw God. In the midst of death, I saw those who had been delivered. Leader: liNever shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget those things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God. Never." [by Elie Wiesel]
20 Open Hands
People: Never shall I forget those flames which consumed me and thee.
Leader: And lest we be driven to forget, a remembrance has been placed before us, in the faces of AIDS; that we might know of God's presence -not in the suffering, but in the compassion; not in the judgment, but in the love.
People: Never shall I forget those flames which consumed me and thee.
Leader: The remnants of the bombing of Hiroshima are called "hibakusha," explosion-affected persons. And we are explosion-affected persons against the holocaust which AIDS has perpetuated upon our brothers and our sisters and on ourselves, as well.
People: Never shall I forget those flames which consumed me and thee.
Leader: Never shall I forget those flames which forged you into a hero and martyr, one who was strong when I felt most weak.
People: Amidst your dying, I saw the infinite face of God. I came to hold your hand, and you told me not to be afraid. I looked for ways to heal, and you told me, Utoday I will be with you in paradise."
ALL: And lest we forget, I saw in the faces of AIDS a new heaven and a new earth -a place where I could cry out against injustice and be unafraid -a place where God was transforming human frailty into love. Lest we forget God's compassion, let us remember one another's love, and the place for that love, with our brothers and sisters, our adversaries and our allies. AMEN and AMEN.
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
HYMN FOR REMEMBRANCE "Open My Eyes"
CALL TO PRAYER
God, we come before you today aching inside. We are revolted by the news which comes to us daily of hatred and disease. But we are doubly troubled today because we know that the awful things we see going on in the world are also inside of us.
We know too, God, that often we have tried to go our lives alone without calling on you for help. We haven't even been willing to take the time to see how an expanded concept of you might bring us to a brand new way of envisioning possibilities for ourselves.
We need to experience today the radical, sweeping power of your active love in the midst of our hating and hesitant living.
SILENT AND CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS
(A time to speak aloud or silently of the grief and hope which we all carry. A time for the reading of names of those who have died. Optional time of Eucharist and/or Passing of the Peace.)
WORDS OF ASSURANCE
"And behold: I saw a new heaven and a new earth -for the old heaven and the old earth had passed away and were no more!"
Look around you -God's powerful love is present in persons who care about you and the health of persons in the world.
Look within you -God's powerful love is present in all your yearnings to be the very best person you can possibly be.
HYMN OF ASSURANCE:
"We Are a Gentle, Angry People"
BENEDICTION (adapted from a Navajo benediction)
L: God is before us.
P: God is behind us.
L: God is within us.
P: God is outside of us.
L: God's words shall come from our mouths for we are God's essence, a vision of God's love.
P: All is finished in beauty.
L: All is finished in beauty.
P: All is finished in beauty.
Open Hands 21
UNITED METHODIST CONSULTA TIO N
The United Methodist Church's first national gathering to look at the church's response to AIDS was held last November. This consultation was cosponsored by three general boards of the denomination: Global Ministries, Church and Society, and Discipleship. Over 400 participants from around the country gathered to listen to speakers, participate in workshops, and worship together. These reflections explore the impact of the consultation on its participants and, more particularly, on Reconciling Congregations.
Following Jesus' Example
By Mike Alexander
Two occurrences since the National Consultation on AIDS Ministries help to interpret my experiences there. The first was the death of Lyle Loder, a member of the consultation steering committee who died two weeks after the event. The other members of the steering committee sent the consultation participants a memorial card to honor Lyle's contribution to the consultation and to the United Methodist response to the epidemic. The second event was the death of one of my parishioners. During the 15 months of his struggle, I learned much about AIDS, its physical and emotional effects, and especially its effects on family members. Mark's disease and death challenged me in many ways, but I remained convinced that God was calling me to minister to him and his family. These two experiences reinforced the primary message of the consultation for me -the assurance of God's compassion to all people and that by following the example of Jesus Christ, I will be strengthened to serve all people, including persons with AIDS.
My theological understanding was strengthened by the
speakers at the consultation. Bishop Leontine Kelly
reminded us that "the Sovereign God is free to be merciful
22 Open Hands
to whom God chooses." She went on to say, "Jesus God
in flesh -lives out this freedom" by serving those
who are outcasts. Kelly rejected any thoughts of AIDS as
God's retribution by stating that "God wills shalom for us."
Dr. William Herzog, professor of New Testament at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, echoed Bishop Kelly's statements and suggested that Jesus made a shift from the purity codes that were prevalent in his day to a mercy code whereby we are all indebted to God, clean or unclean. His primary example of this shift was the healing of the man with leprosy (Mark 1:40-45). The man asked Jesus to make him clean. Jesus did this by touching him, thus becoming unclean according to the codes. The implications of Herzog's presentation on our understanding of AIDS is that Jesus would reject our 20th century purity codes that center on wealth and health and on a religious morality which sees AIDS as God's punishment.
Dr. Karen Lebacqz, on the faculty of the Pacific School of Religion, reminded us that the church's integrity is on the line as it deals with the AIDS crisis. We should be willing to address the realities of AIDS transmission despite the fact that it brings up our most prevalent fears: fear of illness, of death, of the unknown, and of sex, particularly homosexual ity.
Rev. Connie Hartquist, Episcopal chaplain at San Francisco General Hospital, urged us as caregivers to be willing to be seen as the other, like Jesus, when we minister. We should be willing to be labeled as gay and as HIV positive. She asked, "What do our responses to AIDS say about our God?"
Rev. Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial Church, San Francisco, reminded us that God suffers with those who suffer. He suggested that the real evil in the world is among those who sit on the sidelines of this crisis.
In addition to these theological challenges, we were given an update on the medical aspects of the disease. Dr. Paul Volberding, from San Francisco General Hospital , explained that the difficulty with HIV is that it is a retrovirus that is implanted in a person's genes, thus persons are infected for life and can be infectious even if they don't develop AIDS or ARC.
Pat Norman, lesbian activist from San Francisco, warned us to be especially concerned for women, children, and people of color because of the exploding rates of transmission among those groups. Dr. Margaret Gregory, a San Francisco internist, pleaded with us not to forget the IV drug user community which she serves.
Dr. Cecile DeSweemer, an epidemiologist working in Africa, challenged us to a global perspective of AIDS. There are more cases in the rest of the world than in North America. In Africa, death comes, on the average, 20 weeks after diagnosis, while in the United States, it comes 18 months after diagnosis . The condition of health care facilities in Africa allows for 15% of the AIDS cases there to be transmitted through the health care system. I also attended two workshops. The first, "Homophobia: A Barrier to AIDS Ministries," looked at the church's heterosexism -the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm upon which human relationships are based. This causes us to miss opportunities for ministry among those who fall outside that norm.
ON AID S M INISTRIES
The second workshop was "Local Church Models for AIDS Ministries." Here we were challenged to assist in the invention of AIDS ministries.
The event that most deeply moved me was not on the agenda of the consultation. It was when George Clark, a person with AIDS, shared with us his visit to his college fraternity. There he told his fraternity brothers that he was gay and that he had AIDS. Quite surprisingly, they accepted him and pledged their support to him. This had not been the response of his local church. He asked us if he would find the same kind of community offered by his fraternity in our local churches.
Empowering the Ministry of
Reconciling Congregations
By Kim Smith and Duane Wilkerson
A s pastors of local churches in San Francisco, both Reconciling Congregations, we were deeply involved in the planning and operations of the consultation . The event not only surpassed our personal expectations, but also had a significant impact upon our congregations.
B ethany UMC has been a Reconciling Congregation for almost five years. The man who served as our church organist for several years, a beloved and active member of the congregation, was one of the first persons in San Francisco to be diagnosed with AIDS and die.
When the congregation adopted two-year program goals in 1987, the first was to educate ourselves about AIDS and equip ourselves for a ministry with persons with AIDS. We looked forward to the consultation as a way of beginning and boosting our local church ministry.
This was realized in many ways . First, the
consultation provided several members with extensive
~nfo~ation and training. No one in San Francisco has any
lllusIOns about AIDS being somewhere else, but it is also
easy not to see what is next door to you. The consultation
drove home the fact that we are in a prime area for serving
persons with AIDS, their caregivers, lovers and families.
There was a sense in which we heard, "Yes, it is herewe
are here -let's go!"
Second, the consultation was a promise from the
national church that it would be supportive of our
ministries. As a Reconciling Congregation, we stand
outside the national church's policy and understanding about
?omosexuality. \The consultation, which had to address
~ssues of homosexuality, sexuality, and ethics as a part of
ltS agenda, said to us: "We are interested in the problems
that fa~e your community; we want to understand what you
are domg and will be doing; in growing ways, we will be
there with you."
The consultation was also a realization of the slowness
of the whole church to respond to the AIDS crisis and did
create a national ownership of this confession and
commit~ent to action. Bethany is empowered by the unity
of our slster and brother United Methodists that evolved
from the consultation. We no longer feel that we are
absolutely alone in this crisis and struggle.
Lastly, the consultation pointed out the glaring need
fo~ ~ ~nif~ed a~d ~ignified response to a horrible and tragic
cnSlS. In ldentlfymg the need, the consultation made Bethany's response all the more timely and necessary . Knowing that they are part of a greater effort, people are more willing to put in the effort to care for people with AIDS and ARC. We feel supported and thus empowered to reach out, to learn and grow and serve.
W hile it is important to separate AIDS from gay/lesbian concerns, for Calvary UMC they were twin births. The impetus to be in AIDS ministry also spawned our decision to begin a formal process of becoming a Reconciling Congregation. Five laymembers of Calvary and I worked on a planning committee and attended the consultation. The effect of the consultation cannot be measured simply from what took place at the consultation itself but also from the many months leading up to it.
The most obvious effect of the consultation on Calvary was the validation we felt from the national church. We are a small congregation of I 10 members . We can easily get lost in the forest of national issues and concerns. The consultation demonstrated that the work and efforts of local congregations like ours are valuable. Much of the focus of the consultation was on how local congregations are involved in AIDS-related ministries.
We are involved in AIDS ministry partly because we believe strongly that it is a justice issue which involves gay men in our community . This tragedy within the gay community of San Francisco, juxtaposed with the apathy of much of our society as a whole, is intolerable to us. Because we are a community of which gay men are a part, AIDS was a "personal crisis" before it became a "national crisis."
This sense of outrage expressed over and over again at the consultation reinforced our belief that the depth of our concern was not overexaggerated but was, in fact, based on reality (not to mention being based upon sound biblical themes). Our commitment and resolve to be in AIDS ministry has been bolstered for the long haul. The wonderful connection experienced at the consultation in meeting United Methodists from across the country who are in the same struggle with us further empowered our resolve.
Finally, the consultation empowered us at Calvary by doing and being what the church was born to be -a community of God's people that strengthens one another through worship, fellowship, and service. The church's inclusiveness, a mark of the consultation, is a reflection of what being a Reconciling Congregation is about.
Mike Alexander is associate pastor of First UMC in Ashland, Ohio. Kim Smith and Duane Wilkerson are pastors, respectively, of Bethany and Calvary UMCs, two Reconciling Congregations. in San Francisco. Open Hands 23
AIDS IN THE CLOSET
By Wendy Tate
For a person with AIDS, simply coping with opportunistic infections and trying to maintain as normal a life as possible is hard work. Yet many persons with AIDS must wrestle with the additional burden of keeping the nature of their illness asecret. They must be selective in choosing those with whom they speak freely concerning their physical, mental, and emotional health. They must remain silent in public arenas, and their silence stems from fear -fear of rejection by friends and family.
" HIV is an equal opportunity virus. Not only does it infect persons in different parts of the world, persons of both genders, persons of every sexual orientation, and persons outside of the originally identified 'high risk groups,' but it infects even persons who may have thought themselves safely hidden away in a closet. ~
Several United Methodist ministers, professional lay workers, and abishop have died of AIDS. Too few of them have felt free to discuss it publicly, to educate and enlighten, or to simply open themselves to the possibility of the support from the wider church. Their lives have become divided into what can and cannot be made public. In most cases, any discussion of how AIDS was contracted has had to be completely avoided.
" Perhaps the most tragic aspect of AIDS and the closeted individual (and I am speaking from my perspective as a closeted gay man) is the 'double whammy' of having to deal with a serious, life-threatening disease and at the same time face up to issues of sexual orientation that one thought were safely hidden away from public view. All too often, the . 'coming out' process (or the 'coming to grips' process for those around the individual) takes what limited time there may be, denying the individuals involved the opportunity to actually deal with issues concerning death and dying.
This saddens and angers me. Not only does the person with AIDS (PWA) lose the possibility of choosing how to deal creatively with 'coming out,' but also those around the PWA are denied the opportunity to understand, to witness, and to participate fully in the healing process. I have learned some profound lessons about life from friends who have died from AIDS. These persons' ability to reach out and embrace life, even in the presence of their own death, have challenged and empowered me. ~
The combination of "AIDS hysteria" and of social homophobialheterosexism works to drive underground those whose quality of life might be vastly improved if openness and honesty could be achieved. Ayoung woman with AIDS is so frightened that she will share her secret only with her minister, despite the supportive nature of her church family. Bishop Finis Crutchfield died of AIDS yet kept the source of his infection asecret to everyone until his death, leading ,to false assumptions as to how he contracted the disease. A nurse in Alabama whose blood test comes back afalse positive spends four months isolating herself from her family and friends before the mistake is discovered and corrected. Ayoung man, fearfu of the response of neighbors, does not answer the door or go out in the daytime in an attempt to hide Kaposi's sarcoma lesions on his face. Certainly the choice to remain private is avalid one, but doing so out of necessity is another matter -aforced life and death essentially alone.
The mental and emotional burden of remaining in the closet with AIDS takes its toll, creating loneliness and isolation and placing an added strain on an already overburdened immune system. The PWA can be isolated from those very persons and groups that might provide help and support.
The church could be amain source of support. Many local churches have given tremendous support and enthusiastic help to persons with AIDS. However, many find their own homophobia and AIDS-phobia prevent such reaching out. PWAs perceive both direct and indirect messages from their churches to stay in the closet with their disease. Thus, for aperson with AIDS, the church has effectively distanced itself.
" From my vantage point in the closet, I observe that for some closeted persons, the opportunity to become actively involved in AIDS-related ministries has been an important way for them to move past the isolation and frustration in their own closetedness. It has allowed them to reach out to persons in need, persons with whom they share significant common experiences and feelings, yet with whom they feel they cannot openly identify. Also, I would remind you that not all persons who commit themselves to working with PWAs or in AIDS-related causes are closeted gays! Many are in that category, to be sure, but so many more amazing individuals have chosen to give of themselves in the face of this frightening and tragic disease simply because they are needed. The power of their love touches not only those persons with AIDS whom they seek to help. The power of that love can penetrate even the most fortified of closet doors and reach into the darkest corner. I know. ~
Wendy Tate is pastor of Fairmount UMC in Richmond, VA. She worked with PWAs in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., in 1985-86 and is currently a volunteer at the Richmond AIDS Information Network. The quotations in this article are by a gay UMC clergyman who works in a health and human service agency.
24 Open Hands
RESO U RCES
P UBLISHED AND AUDIO-VIDEO MATERIALS
AIDS and Society
Altman, Dennis. AIDS in the Mind of America. New York: Doubleday, 1986. One of the earlier AIDS books and still among the finest. Looks at AIDS as a part of the U. S. consciousness and offers some important insights.
Shilts, Randy, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin's, 1987. A journalist's historical account of the AIDS epidemic. This book is controversial and names names, both of heroes and of supposed villains. Not an easy read, but an important part of today's
AIDS culture.
AIDS and Spirituality
Amos, William E., Jr., When AIDS Comes to Church. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988. An account by a Florida Baptist minister of his personaljourney, as well as his congregation's, to minister to persons with AIDS in their church and community. Chapter on "Enabling the Church to Respond" contains excellent suggestions for, and caveats about, congregational action. Written with compassion and commitment, not judgment.
Fortunato, John E., AIDS, the Spiritual Dilemma. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. An insightful and informative book concerning AIDS from the viewpoint of spirituality. Likens AIDS, and society's response to it, to the Middle Ages . Develops models through which individuals and the church may respond out of understanding and concern.
Shelp, Earl E., Ronald H. Sunderland, and Peter
W.A. Mansell. AIDS: Personal stories in Pastoral Perspective. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1986. Captures a pastoral insight into AIDS that is usable in local church communities. Includes stories , personal reflection, and responses.
AIDS, Children, and Youth
de Saint Phaile , Niki. AIDS -You Can't Catch It Holding Hands. San Francisco: Lapis Press, 1986. A letter for children of all ages . Written to "Phillip" from his mother describing what is known and important to know concerning AIDS. Compassionate, informative, and captivating.
Quackenbush, Marsha, ed. Teaching AIDS. Burlington, N.C.: Carolina Biological Supply, 1986. An important resource providing curricula and teaching guides towards educating young people about the myths and realities of the AIDS epidemic .
Personal Stories
Nungesser, Lon. Epidemic of Courage: Facing AIDS in America. New York: St. Martin's, 1986. A collection of insights and interviews by an accomplished writer who himself has AIDS . Offers an important perspective of living with AIDS from the people themselves and their lovers, friends, and care-givers.
Peabody, Barbara. The Screaming Room. New York: Avon, 1986. One of several books now available concerning a parent's dilemma in coming to grips with the terminal illness of a child, gay sexuality, and AIDS. The author is also the founder of a parents group concerned with AIDS.
Resource Manuals
Helquist, Michael, ed. Working with AIDS. San Francisco: University of California, 1987. A guide for mental health professionals that is also useful for lay persons. Articles address every level of people at risk for AIDS/HIV-infection and issues such as people with AIDS/ARC, HIV antibody testing, women, youth, minorities, treatment, and family members and friends.
Landau, Jeremy, ed . An AIDS Action Manual. Boston: Alyson, forthcoming (scheduled for fall 1988 release). Written for persons getting involved in AIDS work or interested in seeing "how others have done it" in order to not reinvent the wheel. Divided into five major areas: direct services, education, alternative health, organizational development, and resources. Royalties are dedicated to the National Association of People with AIDS.
McKusick, Leon. What to Do about AIDS. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. An outstanding collection of insightful articles by professionals involved in AIDS work .
Miscellaneous
General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church. AIDS: A Healing Ministry. New York: 1988. Drawing on speeches at the United Methodist National Consultation on AIDS Ministries, this excellent 32-minute videotape presents basic facts about AIDS ; puts forth the biblical mandate to develop sound, compassionate AIDS ministries; and discusses fears and prejudices that can impede these ministries. Includes a printed study guide. Order from Ecufilm Distributors, 810 12th Avenue S., Nashville, TN 37203 , 800-251 -409 1. Purchase, $25.00; rent, $12.50; plus postage and handling.
Norwood, Chris. A Woman's Guide to AIDS Risk and Prevention. New York: Pantheon, 1987. Deals with the issues of women concerned about AIDS both as care-giv.ers and as individuals potentially at risk. One of the few books on the subject, giving an appropriate response and insight into women and the AIDS epidemic.
Serinus, Jason, ed. Psychoimmunity and the Healing Process: Focus on Immunity and AIDS. Berkeley: Celestial Arts Press, 1986. A new-age approach to AIDS , including "trance channeling ." Offers a vital response to the AIDS epidemic that is both insightful and supportive to persons facing AIDS and their loved ones.
ORGANIZATIONS AND
H OTLINES
National AIDS Hotlines
AIDS Hotline, U.S. Public Health Service,
800-342-AIDS AIDS Information Line, the Fund for Human Dignity, 800-221-7044 (NY state: 212-807-60 16)
National Sexually Transmitted Diseases Hotline, American Social Health Association, 800-227-8922
National Organizations
AIDS Action Council, 729 8th St. SE, Ste. 200,
Washington, DC 20003,202-547-3101 American Red Cross, AIDS Education Office, 1730 D St. NW, Washington, DC20006, 202737-8300
Mothers of AIDS Patients, c/o Barbara Peabody, 3403 ESt., San Diego, CA 92102, 619234-3432
National AID3 Network, 1012 14th St. NW, Ste. 601, Washington, DC 20005,202-347-0390 National Association of People with AIDS,
P.O. Box 65472, Washington, DC 20035,
202-483-7979 National Council of Churches, AIDS Task Force, 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 572, New York, NY 10115, 212-870-2421
National Council of Churches, Minority Task Force on AIDS, 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 456, New York, NY 10115,212-749-1214
National Minority AIDS Council, 5882 W. Pico Blvd., Ste. 210, Los Angeles, CA 90019, 213-936-4949
U.S. Publk Health Service, Public Affairs Office, Hubert H. Humphrey Bldg. , Room 725-H, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20201, 202-245-6867
State and Local Organizations
To obtain a list of many state and local AIDS-related organizations, write or phone the National AIDS Network (see above) and ask for the NAN directory, "AIDS Education and Service Organizations." Cost = $10.00
Open Hands 25
~~~_R_CPRE_PORT__
New Reconciling Congregations
We welcome the six UM local churches who have become Reconciling Congregations this spring and early summer. We introduce three of them here. The three who joined early this summerSt. Francis-of-the-Foothills (Tucson), Hamilton (San Francisco), and Wesley (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) -will be introduced in our fall issue.
We celebrate this continued growth of our movement, which now has 35 Reconciling Congregations and 5 Reconciling Conferences, to affirm the full participation of all persons in the Body of Christ.
Calvary UMC (San Francisco)
Calvary celebrated its 75th anniversary as a church on June 26, 1988. It is a multiethnic congregation with 110 members.
Calvary has been one of the leaders in the California-Nevada Annual Conference in AIDS ministries. In January of this year, in cooperation with Bethany UMC (another Reconciling congregation), it formed the United Methodist AIDS Project. This project was facilitated by a grant from the Health and Welfare Division of the General Board of Global Ministries.
The pastor of Calvary, Duane Wilkerson, is a member of the RCP Advisory Committee.
Crescent Heights UMC (West Hollywood, California)
Crescent Heights UMC was formed in 1914. Located in an "urban village," the neighborhood is comprised primarily of Old World Jews and lesbians and gay men. Crescent Heights is currently the only mainline Protestant denomination in this neighborhood.
The congregation of about 70 members offers its community a ministry of hospitality. Several community groups, including the local Metropolitan Community Church and a Korean congregation, share its building. Currently, Crescent Heights is welcoming a new pastor, Tom Griffith.
United University Church (Los Angeles)
United University Church was formed several decades ago through the union of University Methodist Church and Old First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles. It maintains ties with both denominations, alternating jurisdictions every five years. It is just beginning a five-year period of being "United Methodist" with a new pastor, Patricia Farris.
Located on the edge of the University of Southern California campus, the congregation includes the campus community as part of its ministry and outreach. The congregation of 60 to 80 members is active in ministries in the sanctuary movement and with peace and justice concerns. The congregation became a "More Light" church (the Presbyterian equivalent of a Reconciling Congregation) three years ago.
Annual Conference Actions
This year's meetings of the annual conferences of the United Methodist Church resulted in one new Reconciling Conference and a few other actions related to lesbians and gay men.
The Wyoming Annual Conference (not in Wyoming, but in northeastern Pennsylvania and southeastern New York state) became the fifth Reconciling Conference. The resolution passed at the Wyoming Conference reads, in part:
BE IT RESOLVED that the Wyoming Annual Conference reaffirm the personal worth and dignity oflesbians and gay men and their participation in the general ministry ofthe Church ofJesus Christ; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Wyoming Annual Conference demonstrates its commitment to the Christian faith and to the Social Principles by directing its boards and agencies to adopt the policies of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Wyoming Annual Conference calls on all United Methodists within the bounds ofthe Conference to reject in their own lives, and challenge in others, attitudes and actions which drive lesbians and gay men away from Christ and the Church; and ...
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Wyoming Annual Conference urges each local church to develop a statement affirming the full participation of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, in the life of that local congregation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Wyoming Annual Conference declare itself a "Reconciling Conference," affirming the active participation of homosexuals and bisexuals, as well as heterosexuals, in the life ofthis Annual Conference.
A local newspaper, in Binghamton, New York, juxtaposed this action of the annual conference with the recent General Conference actions in an article headlined, "Regional Methodists Break Ranks to Back Gays."
Another Reconciling Conference, Troy (in northeastern New York and Vermont), faced a request to rescind its status as a Reconciling Conference voted a year ago. The resolution, as presented to the annual conference, called for the suspension of its status as a Reconciling Conference until a two-year study on what it means to be a Reconciling Conference and its implications for the local church could be completed. After a lengthy and impassioned discussion, the full conference voted to conduct the two-year study but did not vote the suspension.
Efforts were defeated in two annual conferences , California-Nevada and Northern Illinois, to implement a conference ban on funding lesbian/gay concerns. The current provision in the Book of Discipline (par. 906.12), which prohibits "funds to any 'gay' caucus or group, or otherwise use of such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality," is applicable only to general church agencies and not to annual conferences.
As in recent years, many annual conferences passed AIDS-related resolutions. The Eastern Pennsylvania conference adopted a resolution condemning violence directed towards lesbians and gay men.
26 Open Hands
__RC_PRE_PORT_~lig
Gen eral Conference Maintains Status Quo; Adopts Study
The United Methodist General Conference, meeting April 26-May 6 in St. Louis, made no significant changes in its policies towards lesbians and gay men. The ban on ordaining or appointing "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" and the funding ban on national church bodies were maintained without change. Some editorial changes were made in the Social Principles statement, including adding the phrase "we commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons." However, the objectionable phrase, "we do not condone the practice of homosexuality ... " was maintained.
In breaking with past practice, the General Conference did mandate a fouryear study on homosexuality to be conducted by the General Council on Ministries and reported back to the 1992 General Conference.
In spite of the lack of official support from the General Conference, members of Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns and Reconciling Congregations carried out a lively and faithful witness during the two weeks of the General Conference. The hospitality center was constantly busy with work and visitors. The celebration dinner and AIDS memorial service were very well attended and received.
One highlight of the General Conference was the premiere of "Casting Out Fear: Reconciling Ministries with Gay/ Lesbian United Methodists." A roughly edited version of film taken at the convocation of Reconciling Congregations in March 1987 has been shown in many cities around the country over the past year. Now released in its final, polished form, "Casting Out Fear" was shown daily during the General Conference. Word of the video quickly spread around the conference, and a total of 368 persons saw the video and participated in a reflection time afterward. (For information on how to obtain a copy of "Casting Out Fear," see the box on page 28.)
A four-page report on General Conference was mailed in May to supporters of the Reconciling Congregation Program efforts there. If you would like a copy of that report, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: RCP, P.O. Box 24213, Nashville, TN 37202.
Affirmation Meets in September
The semiannual meeting of Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns will be September 16-18, 1988, at Albany UMC in the Bay Area of California. All friends of Affirmation and Reconciling Congregations are welcome. For more information on the meeting, write Affirmation, P.O. Box 1021, Evanston, IL 60204.
Index to Open Hands Available
A complete index of all articles in the first three volumes (12 issues) of Open Hands is now available. To receive one, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Open Hands, P.O. Box 23636, Washington, DC 20026.
As the Reconciling Congregation Program and Open Hands continue to grow, the need for resources and assistance also grows. Ifyou would like to get more involved in our movement advocating lesbian/gay concerns in the church, write to us or call Mark (202/484-1233) or Beth (6151792-3534). Here are some areas in which we need help now:
Co-coordinator of Reconciling Congregation Program -Woman to fill part-time staff position in leadership team of RCP and Open Hands, beginning in the fall. Work includes strategic planning and implementation, grass roots organizing, writing and editing, volunteer recruitment and support, and some fundraising. Must be able to handle own correspondence and filing. Send resume and letter outlining qualifications by September 30, 1988, to RCP address.
Sales Manager -volunteer position (4-6 hours a month) to arrange and handle sales of Open Hands through bookstores around the country. May involve a commission in the future.
Advertising Manager -volunteer position (4-6 h9urs a month) to develop and propose plan for accepting paid advertising in Open Hands; then to implement the plan, if approved. Also may include commission in the future.
Subscription Manager -volunteer position (8-10 hours a month) to fill subscriptions, maintain subscription records, and handle limited subscription correspondence. Most helpful if person lives in Washington, D.C., area.
Ifyou don't feel able to handle one of the positions above, but would like to volunteer in any other way, please contact Mark or Beth.
Open Hands 27
~I----~_RC_PRE_PORT_ C -.
'1-'
Limited Release Videotape Now A"ailable!
CASTING OUT FEAR:
Reconciling Ministries with Gay/Lesbian United Methodists
This videotape poignantly tells stories from Reconciling Congregations, United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministries with all persons, including lesbians and gay men. These stories portray the pain and estrangement lesbians and gay men feel in the church and the hope of reconciliation found in these congregations who are willing to struggle with homophobia and move toward a more loving acceptance. Shot at the national convocation of Reconciling Congregations in March 1987, the film also contains words from Bishop Melvin Wheatley, Dr. Tex Sample, and Dr. Emilie Townes. 38 minutes. VHS format. Copyright 1988.
Responses from viewers at the premiere showing at the 1988 United Methodist General Conference:
"'Casting Out Fear' will open your heart and mind to fuller love. "
-Rev. Patricia Farris, California-Pacific Conference
'This videotape very poignantly describes the feelings I hear expressed byfriends who are unable to be open about their sexuality. "
-Phil Carver, Iowa Conference
':.. an eye-opener. This film is definitely Ood's message of reconciliation.
"
-
Rene Pino,
"'Casting Out Fear' is a deeply movOregon-
Idaho Conference
ing film that helped me understand
Ood's love better. "
-Rev. Arthur Brandenburg,
Eastern Pennsylvania Conference
'''Casting Out Fear' is an excellent tool for engaging in genuine discussionfor learning, rather than top rove the rightness or wrongness of any particular belief. "
-Marcus Dickson, Western Pennsylvania Conference
AVAILABLE FROM:
Reconciling Congregation Program
P.O. Box 24213 Nashville, TN 37202
PURCHASEPRICE -$100 30-DAY RENTAL -$20 ALL ORDERS PREPAID
ReconCi mg
Metropolitan-Duane UMC
do Takayuki Ishii 201 W. 13th Street New York, NY 10011
Washington Square UMC
c/o Marty Morrison 135 W . 4th Street New York, NY 10012
Park Slope UMC
c/o Beth Bentley 6th Avenue & 8th Street Brooklyn, NY 11215
Calvary UMC
c/o Chip Coffman 815 S. 48th Street Philadelphia, PA 19143
Dumbarton UMC
c/o Ann Thompson Cook 3133 Dumbarton Ave., NW Washington, DC 20007
Christ UMC
do Kay Moore 4th and I Streets, SW W ashington, DC 20024
St. John's UMC
C/o Howard Nash 2705 SI. Paul Street Baltimore, MD 21218
Grant Park-Aldersgate UMC
c/o Sally Daniel 575 Boulevard, SE Atlanta, GA 30312
Edgehill UMC
do Hoyt Hickman 1S02 Edgehill Avenue Nashville, TN 37212
Central UMC
c/o Chuck Larkins 701 W. Central at Scottwood Toledo, OH 436 10
Wesley UMC
c/o Barry Watson 823 Union Avenue Sheboygan, W I 53081
University UMC
c/o Steven Webster 11 27 University Avenue Madison, WI S3715
Wesley UMC
c/o Tim Tennant-Jayne Marquette at Grant Streets Minneapolis, MN 55403
University UMC
do Dave Schmidt 633 W. Locust DeKalb, IL 60115
Wheadon uMc
do Carol Larson 2212 Ridge Avenue Evanston, IL 60201
Albany Park UMC
do Ted Luis, Sr. 3100 W. Wilson Avenue Chicago, IL 60625
Irving Park UMC
do David Fos~r 3801 N. Keelet Avenue Chicago, IL 6004 1
Kairos UMC
c/o Richard Vogel 6015 McGee Kansas City, MO 6~113
ongregatlons
St. Mark's UMC
c/o David Schwarz 11 30 N. Rampart Street New Orleans, LA 70116
St. Paul's UMC
do George Christie 1615 Ogden Street Denver, CO 80218
St. Francis-of-the-Foothills UMC
c/o P. David Wilkinson 4625 E. River Road Tucson, AZ. 85718
United University Church
do Edgar Welty 81 7 W. 34th Street Los Angeles, CA 90007
Crescent Heights UMC
c/o Walter Schlosser 1296 N. Fairfax Avenue
W. Hollywood, CA 90046
The Church in Ocean Park
do Judy Abdo 235 Hill Street Santa Monica, CA 90405
Wesley UMC
c/o Patty Orlando 1343 E. Barstow Avenue Fresno, CA 9371 0
Bethany UMC
do Rick Grube 1268 Sanchez Street San Francisco, CA 94114
Hamilton UMC
do Judy Kreige 1525 Waller Street San Francisco, CA 94117
Calvary UMC
c/o Jerry Brown 1400 Judah Street San Francisco, CA 94122
Trinity UMC
c/o Arron Auger 152 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94122
Trinity UMC
do Elli Norris
2320 Dana Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
Albany UMC
do Jim Scurlock
980 Stannage
Albany, CA 94706
Sunnyhills UMC
c/o Cliveden Chew Haas 335 Dixon Road Milpitas, CA 95035
St. Paul's UMC
do Dianne L. Grimard 101 West Street Vacaville, CA 95688
WaJlingford UMC
do Margarita Will
21 15 N. 42nd Street
Seattle, WA 98103
C~'OIHiliUMC
c/o ary Dougherty
128 SI teenth Street
Seattle, WA 981 12
Reconciling Conferences
California-Nevada Troy New York Wyoming Northern Illinois
28 Open Hands