I WOULD HAVE TAKEN A PICTURE, BUT IT WOULD NOT HAVE MATTERED

WHERE'S THE GAY GUY? 

I was going to take a picture for this "Thought" but then I realized that it would look something like the one you have here on the left.  So I decided that it wasn't worth it.  The only recognizable person would have been the priest leading the meeting.  All the rest were just ordinary people.  Well, almost "ordinary".  Most of them are still ordinary, but then again that is perhaps not perfectly true any more either.  You see this would have been a picture of about 30 people sitting in front of a Catholic priest teaching them about the position that the Catholic Church wants us to have with regards our homosexual brethren.  The point of the picture would have been the same as it with the one that you presently have before you...from behind we are all the same.  In the eyes of God we are all lovable. Each one of us cost Jesus His life, down to the last drop of His blood.  The challenge that we have then is to love one another as He loved us.  And, surprise, that includes homosexuals.  

I could not attend the entire session because I have other responsibilities concerning the mini-symposium about which I have been writing lately.  I did sit there a bit and I did make myself present at the end.  This was easy because all the other sessions had closed down and this one was still going.  It had been going for about 2 hours and the people were still there, listening, making comments, and behold, so intently engaged, and so polite and gentle to one another and to the priest/leader of the exchanges.  As the session wound down I went to the front of the group and since there were many there who did not really know me, I introduced myself.   I said that I was sincerely happy to have been able to make this meeting happen and that I hoped that God would make their spiritual life at our church a fruitful one.  As I was speaking I noticed that many of them were people whom I know and who know me.  They were so happy to see me.  Five or six of them came to me before leaving to hug me and thank me for having the courage to make something like this happen.  I was surprised at the depth of their sincerity and their evident  gratitude.  They were all wearing their emotions on their sleeves.  

The crowning came when I was alone with the priest who then told me that he did not believe his eyes when he walked into the room and beheld about 30 people in attendance.  He had come in the expectation of seeing some  5 or 6.  He could not contain his euphoria all the way back to his auto.  As he crouched to get into his vehicle, all he could find to say was, "I have to hope that the English speaking group scheduled for tomorrow night will be as numerous and as spiritually awake as this Hispanic group is."

Dear readers, please pray for us.  Many of us, I repeat, many of us, are in uncharted waters here.  All we have is the certainty that God wants us here.  Ask Him to give us the strength to help Him with these Ninivites without His having to carry us there in the belly of a whale.