Send in the Queers!

So here I am sitting at McCormick Theological Seminary blogging--only eleven hours after being in New York City. It was so fun and everyone there loves me and thinks I should move to NYC. AHHH! I'm so torn! Every time I go to NYC I am mistaken for a native by some tourist and actually in this last trip by some New Yorkers themselves. The retreat was so much fun. Mostly because it wasn't like a retreat! It was a place of growth not falling back or retreating. We truly had a fire--a spirit--of community and family descended upon our group. Because of confidentiality concerns I'm not going to outline the weekend's events but I will say there are a lot of wonderful, holy, loving, and fun people in ministry and entering ministry that joyfully proclaim the gospel message but that message is rejected by the church at large. It is by the grace of God that we find people of like minds to edify and build up!

Now, I mentioned in a previous entry that the end of the retreat would culminate in having communion at the Pride parade in NYC on Sunday the 26th of June. Well, it was more than that! I have pictures but I forgot to take my digital camera so I still need to develop them. I'd never seen so many naked men and women! I actually marched in the Parade with the "Presbyterian Welcome" group which is composed of openly homosexual ordained clergy from the Presbyterian church and their allies. It seems that despite the some seeming restrictions for such ordinations the book of order for the PC(USA), like any legal document, has varying modes of interpretation and has been interpreted by the courts of the PC(USA) to not restrict the ordination of openly homosexual ministers called by God. There have already been two ordinations in the church using these new court rulings (though their ordinations are always in jeopardy of church question and have been questioned in the courts again and again with the same outcome). The court rulings all hinge on something the uber conservatives put into the book of order which I find quite ironic. At any rate, I'll post some pictures of all the churches involved in Pride and some "other" pictures that I hope scandalize but are not inappropriate. (they will be tasteful don't worry)