Going for the gay gold!

       Someone in a FaceBook posting had asked the group whether they should embrace being gay. They meant, should they become sexually active and explore the sexuality and desires that were longing for?  As sexuality is such an intimate, God given part of any human being, I said go for it!  I was careful to point out that I was not advocating promiscuity. Rather, we should be willing and open to sharing one of God's most precious gifts to us in a decent, committed and loving manner. Our sex, being gay, being straight or whatever, is something that we should revel in respectfully, willingly. The big But is that it has involve mutuality and respect and not be frivolous. In my opinion. What does that have to do with today's passage?

       In today's passage Jesus as much as appointed or created his Apostles - and then he went home. Momentous and simple at the same time.  But that is what life is like.

        We are called to be the best person we can be. We are called to be the fulfillment of all that God created us to be in every aspect of our lives. That involves the ecstasy of our sex to the mundane routines of opening doors, writing checks, interacting with coworkers and cashiers at the food store. Being who God has called us to be is exciting and boring. 

         Being gay, it seems to me, is quite an exciting and wondrous gift from God.  Maybe better than being an Apostle. Maybe being an apostle of diversity, of love and joy. A set of gifts unique and unfamiliar to most, but gifts still the same. And when we are done for the day being the best  gay we can be, getting the gay gold if you will, we can simply go home like Jesus did.

           We will find that we are still the same person with the same calling. When we go home we will have the peace of mind knowing that we are gay, totally gay, being the best person God called us to be in all the magnificent facets of our being.

         Whatever your calling in life, whomever God made you to be, gay, straight or whatever. We are called to embrace it, live it in our daily lives until we get all pruny in it.  Be the best we can be, the most loving we can be. We should not be afraid to embrace those aspects of out being that are labeled as taboo, that some humans have villified. Should we be prudent in our loving? Yes. Should we fail to love, we would be repudiating the essence of whom God made us to be. That goes for everyone.

           For the richness of our created beings and sharing our essence to the full with dignity, respect and prudence, I pray.

Mark 3:7-19

Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home;