Turn of Events

It have become my habit to walk every, if not, most mornings. The route I walk takes me two circuits around the University’s main campus. Nice wide front lawn carefully mowed and cared for is a weekly task by the large numbers of ground keepers. The campus has a great many pine and magnolia trees and azalea bushes which are beautiful when they bloom in early spring. It is a pleasant walk which takes about an hour to complete; it is a quiet time for me since I prefer to walk without headphones. I get charged for the day just listening to sounds of the birds and wind in the trees and even the rush as the cars whiz by; but it is also a good time to think, have dialogues with myself answering pointed questions as I think of them.

Which brings me to my becoming involved with the PFLAG movement; last school term, several groups with the University sponsored a diversity day on the front lawn of main campus and one of the tables was for PFLAG. Kay and I had been talking with a therapist about what we could do to support our GLBT students and families. In wondering how to get invitations to talk to civic groups explaining the purpose of PFLAG and our purpose is to provide a safe place to meet and discuss the problems that people face on a daily basis.

The dialogues turned into sermons and lectures as to how I should best response to rejection and anger that I am imagining will happen. My thoughts jump to the story of Jesus and the woman at the well and I talk about the woman’s societal place and that Jesus, as a Jew, is not suppose to even talk to her because she is an adulterous woman; and has no husband. In asking her to draw him a cup of water he is reaching out to a woman who has been marginalized by society and is not one to associate with. The point that I get from this story is who Jesus will time and again reach out to the people who have been cast aside by society to forgive them, bless them and bring them into the fold of his new flock. And then tie the previous moral lesson to other stories of Jesus and what who he told us to love. All this to make people think about the value of their child life as opposed to the "unworthiness" with his or her being gay.

Anyway the turn of events seems to be how I have managed to redirect my energies to successively organizing a chapter of PFLAG in our growing metropolis in South Georgia. We want to bring people who have been scorned or ridiculed by our society to a safe place where they tell their story.

I am excited and look forward to our PFLAG chapter being a supported resource to the community.