The Reunification Ceremony

A Guest Post by Amanda Loren

My name is Amanda Loren and I dream vividly. Last Saturday morning I woke up from a dream which featured Billie and Celeste, two women I know through Twitter. It left me with such a profound sense of healing and joy upon waking, yet it seemingly came out of nowhere. I hadn't been in deep conversation with either of them recently; that is to say, I couldn't place why my subconscious brought them both into my dream. After telling my husband about the dream, as I sometimes do, I moved on with my day. 

That afternoon, I saw Celeste had retweeted a blog post of Billie’s. With my dream front of mind, I clicked into Billie’s blog and read the post. My skin tingled. The parallels to my dream were uncanny, felt beyond coincidental. Immediately after I finished reading, I messaged Billie, “This is the strangest and coolest timing…” and explained my dream. 

The following is a short story form of my dream. I encourage you, if you are cis, straight, or even straight-presenting, to queer your straightness, as Billie puts it.

The Tolerants had chosen the day and place of the reunification ceremony. An autumn Saturday afternoon in their town. Their hosting was a gesture of goodwill and servitude, they’d explained. Still, the arrangement gave some of us pause. Were we being set up, I worried, for a confrontation on their home turf with nowhere to escape? A few folx declined the invitation and withdrew from the ceremony, their names dropping off the guestlist. Celeste called the hotel to downsize our block of rooms reserved.

When we arrived we tripled the town’s openly queer population, if only for a weekend. We called ourselves “The Tweeple” - it was our first time meeting one another outside Twitter, with a few exceptions. The Tweeple seemed fitting. I was giddy and wonderstruck by the brilliance and beauty and simultaneous ordinariness of these real humans I’d already come to know and admire. Since The Tolerants’ pastor had reached out to Celeste and she had asked Billie to join her, both women would be speaking at the reunification ceremony. Beyond that, we Tweeple didn’t know what to expect. Most of us had learned to hold hope for reconciliation with the church in loose hands - if we held it at all. 

From outside the church looked like it belonged in this town. Old in American terms; that is to say, not all that old and quite plain as churches go. A slate roof, a steeple, well-maintained white wooden siding. When I entered the sanctuary, I felt the hope in my chest spark up a bit toward my throat. The ceiling and walls formed a tall unadorned dome, maybe fifty or sixty feet high. Everything was plaster white; a few arched windows placed around the dome were framed in walnut and wrought iron. Pebbled clear glass let in the afternoon sun from the west and softened the sterility of the all-whiteness. The curved pews were arranged in quarter-circles with aisles leading to a central pulpit and altar. “Theology in the round,” I quipped under my breath to my husband. But the symbolism of a complete circle, of wholeness, of centering Jesus…the invitation to The Tolerants’ church made more sense now. 

No pianist played while The Tolerants and The Tweeple streamed into the church and found their seats. I noticed the locals, The Tolerants, filled the west half of the sanctuary, their backs to the sun. Our groups sat facing one another without intermingling. The spark of hope dropped back into my chest. My husband and I chose a seat on the borderline between The Tweeple and The Tolerants. Part of me felt protective. The Tweeple didn’t fill out their half of the pews facing into the sun but sat close together, leaving empty space at the end of each row where someone might have been sitting. 

The ceremony began. It was as simple and unadorned as the dome we sat beneath. First, the pastor of The Tolerants spoke. Moving about the circular pulpit, he managed to address all the people gathered in the sanctuary. He said some words about Jesus teaching us to love one another and how it’s not our job as humans to cast judgment. Slowly he worked up to a sort of admittance: he had preached in the past that homosexuality was a grave sin and could not be tolerated in the church. As their pastor, he had taught this congregation the same from this very pulpit. And now after much study and contemplation, his heart and mind had been transformed and made new - by the power of Jesus - and he needed to repent. All of The Tolerants in attendance agreed. I wondered how many of their congregation weren't present today and why. The pastor insisted they all wanted to seek forgiveness and repent. 

Pastor Tolerant explained how he had reached out to Celeste in particular because he had once been cruel to her. I wondered if it had been only once. He asked Celeste for forgiveness and what he could do to begin reconciliation between the church and the queer community he (and his congregation) had ostracized. Celeste offered the idea of a gathering on the condition it included authentic repentance and a genuine desire to be in relationship with the queer community. The pastor concluded by asking for forgiveness on behalf of his church. He then invited Celeste and Billie to speak. 

Celeste spoke first. She told of the ways her experience with the church had left her feeling used and manipulated, a husk of a human in the end. She had to spend years undoing the damage wrought by an iron-fisted pastor who was certain his understanding was the right understanding, who viewed any deviation as a threat to be exiled and extinguished. Her message was a plea of caution, a reminder to question and test our certainties lest they become forces of harm and division. She closed by imploring The Tolerants to move beyond tolerance by choosing to love actively in moments when they could choose not to. Then she took a few steps back and to the side, and she remained standing while Billie stood to speak.

When Billie spoke, she began by thanking The Tolerants for inviting us to their town and their church. She brought data into the discussion, citing statistics on the diversity within the larger queer community and within The Tweeple in attendance. Then she brought up socioeconomic data. First, of the state in which The Tolerants resided. Then, their metro area. Finally, their town. Billie pointed out the sharp divide between the haves in the town and the have-nots just outside the city borders. She added diversity back into the discourse, pointing out the significant homogeneity within the town - and pointedly, within the congregation. As she honed in on her points, I watched The Tolerants shift in their pews out of the corner of my eye. 

In a few sentences, Billie spelled out the common wrong of judging others by the degree to which their life, or their being, or their expression of self, differs from our own. She asked The Tolerants, didn’t Jesus tell you not to have a spirit of fear? 

Again she thanked the congregation and the pastor for inviting these Tweeple, many queer people and a few allies, to this reunification ceremony and their church. But, Billie said, I implore you to go and make amends with your literal neighbors. Those who look different from you, whose queer expressions of self have frightened you and maybe still frighten you if you’re honest with yourself, are obviously in need of substantial support. A ceremony won’t cover their housing costs or help them locate queer-safe healthcare. An apology won’t replace the parents who have disowned them or give them somewhere to spend Thanksgiving. It was you who did wrong by them. At this I turned and looked at The Tolerants. They had stopped shifting in their seats, a solemn stillness hanging over them like a shadow. So it must be you who steps toward them and does right things, does tangible good for them. It is you who must first learn to be comfortable with queerness, with differentness. And not just tolerant, or comfortable. You must learn to love queerness, its variations and complexities and expressions, in wholeness. Jesus commanded us all to love one another as deeply as we love ourselves. Perhaps you could learn much from queer people who have had to secure their love of self in the midst of a world set on hating them and exiling them from their midst. 

Billie gathered her notes and took a breath. She softened. If you take anything from my words today, let it be that you should not include or exclude someone from your midst based on their self-expression. Queerness is not a costume. 

Into the silence, I blurted out, “Exactly! The church people have never come at me because I’m cis and married to this guy, so I look acceptable to them.”

Across from me, a gay man says, “Wait…you’re not straight?”

The guy next to him leans away and tuts, “No, she’s bi!” 

I clucked my tongue and said, “Nailed it,” and gave him the thumbs up.

A few Tweeple giggled and chatted amongst themselves, delighting in the solidarity of our queerness and my unplanned irreverence. To my left, I felt some of The Tolerants cringe and recoil.

The ceremony was over.

The spark of hope in my heart was glowing. Not for the hope of reconciliation as much as for the joy of community solidarity. I was glad we had come all this way. As my husband and I stood to leave, a Tolerant couple approached us. The woman spoke to me with a sparkle in her eyes. 

“You’re funny, and I really resonate with what you said. Are you all having a gathering after this? Could we maybe join you? There’s never anyone fun to hang out with in this town.” 

I grinned at them both, my eyes moving to her husband and her in recognition. Of course they could come. 

The ceremony had ended, but a new way was taking form there under the simple dome.