20 Oct Going With the Flow

Dear Westwood Community,

Hello! Everest here. As you may or may not know, I am not, in fact, a cradle methodist. I was raised in the Episcopal church, took communion every week, you know the drill. As of last week, I’ve been at Westwood for two months, and what a two months it has been. This past weekend, I had the honor of attending Reconciling Ministry’s Convocation in North Carolina, an event hosted every four years to strategize and discuss the place of the LGBT+ community within the Methodist Church. My time in your community is the first consistent involvement I have ever had with a Methodist Church, and the Reconciling Convocation was my first FIME, or “Fully Immersive Methodist Experience.”

It was also the first intergenerational LGBT+ event I have ever attended, or at least the first one where people of all different ages were actually interacting with one another. As I moved through the weekend, hearing stories and strategies from people ranging from seven years younger than me to sixty years older (and quite a few in between), the image that kept coming to me was that of a river, flowing onward, passing knowledge and wisdom around and between, building strength from all of the water within its flow. Slow, steady, ever-changing and never-ceasing.

A few weeks ago in Grapple we did an activity where everyone in the room was given a bag of puzzle pieces and told to complete their puzzle as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long for them to realize they had each been given the pieces for a small section of one larger puzzle, which they then had to piece together as a team in order to create the full picture. Through this (very subtle) metaphor, we talked about how each one of us has a different experience of God, and that, when we come together in community and talk about our experiences and stories, we are able to find a more complete understanding of who God is and what God’s love can look like.

Since my arrival at Westwood, I’ve been thinking a lot about age- the ways ageism can prevent us from hearing the voices of those who have lived greater or fewer years than we have, and how to create communities that venture to break down some of those barriers. Too often I hear generations talked about as a monarchy, and too often that is the structure things take- one group holding power until it comes time to pass it off to the next in line, then the one after them, and so on and so forth, forever and ever amen. But I think we all know that progress, growth, and community never thrive with such linear, strict limitations. Hence: river.

The ways in which Westwood approaches intersectionality as faithfully as possible, seeking to honor and create space for as many different people, identities, and perspectives as possible, is a large part of what drew me here to begin with. Too often I have seen “progressive” Christian spaces limit themselves to one type of inclusion, failing to recognize the ways in which embracing intersectionality allows for an infinitely more expansive understanding of God’s love. Though we do not always get it right, in Westwood I see a willingness to learn and keep trying, especially when we misstep, that I have not seen many other places, Christian or otherwise.

Coming back from North Carolina, I thought about this community, our community, and the opportunity we have here to hear so many different voices. I thought about the river, the movement, the stories we share that allow God’s love to manifest. How do we honor the work that has come before us, pour ourselves into the work we do now, and raise a generation that will be able to carry it forward, beyond the horizons we will see in our lifetimes?

I don’t have the answers, and I know you don’t either. But maybe, together in faith, we can get a little closer to figuring it out.

Keep trying, keep embracing, keep flowing, keep the faith.

Yours in solidarity,
Everest