Not long after I started trying Restoration monthly,
they welcomed a new minister. I’d been a fan of McKinley Sims (Okay, full disclosure:
He’s super-dreamy. I had a crush. Sometimes the body leads the soul places,
what can I say?) since about six years ago when he did some of his seminary
work through the Unitarian Society of Germantown. He was always someone I felt
like I could learn from, maybe because (as I later learned) he’s from Lubbock,
Texas just like my ex-wife/BFF is. Something about that accent just makes explaining
go down easy, I guess.
Still, I wondered why a congregation that had a stated
goal of inclusivity and a Black Lives Matter banner out front would choose, in
2018, a white, cisgender straight man, albeit a presumably progressive one.
Encouragingly, McKinley’s first sermon as Restoration’s
new minister gave me lots of hope. He said “siblings” instead of “brothers and
sisters,” which suggested that he might be trained in the ways of the gender
spectrum. He made it clear that he is committed to immigrants’ rights and his
first month’s theme was “sanctuary.” He talked about how building sanctuary
takes work, takes facing problems rather than sweeping them under the rug. He
even acknowledged those harmed by church-enabled sexual abuse, which I have
NEVER EVER heard a preaching minister of any denomination so. NEVER. I’ve been
alive for 44 years. That’s a big deal.
One Sunday a few weeks ago, McKinley went out of town.
The Substitute Minister, the layperson leading the service, was a slight, middle-aged
white guy. He seemed nice enough, so I felt safe to settle in.
Ever in organizing/canvassing/yelling-at-Nazis mode,
the Joy I wanted to share that week was a mini book review. Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of
Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister had saved my life and fired up my
soul in the trigger-laden weeks following the Kavanaugh hearings, and I admit I
was feeling quite evangelistic about it. I’d brought the book for McKinley
because I thought he’d like it, and even though he wasn’t there, I carried it up
through the Joys and Sorrows line anyway.
“Joys and Sorrows,” announced the Substitute Minister,
“Are for matters of the heart, not for political announcements.”
I was SHOCKED! I had never heard them mention politics
during that admonition before—one of the reasons I felt safe at Restoration was
because it felt like a break from the politics-shaming of my family and of the
world at large. Everyone there seemed political, I hadn’t yet had to feel like
I was badly-behaved or a freak.
I SEETHED when it was my turn to share. The Substitute
Minister shrugged and rolled his eyes as I said:
“I deeply resent being told that politics are not a
matter of the heart so…NO…to that.”
(If I had it to do over, I would 100% say “FUCK that.”
Live it, learn it.)
I gave my teensy book review, and the women of the
congregation smiled and nodded.
As I sat back down in my pew, nearly shaking with anger,
a tall and warmly hippie-ish white man, one of the congregation’s regular musicians,
that “Thank you for saying that.”
The next person in the Joys and Sorrows line, an African
American man who looked to be in his early twenties, made (YAY!) an
announcement about the vigil for immigrants’ rights that his committee was
hosting the following Tuesday.
Stoplight Guy wasn’t there that week. I missed him.
I tried to listen to the rest of the Joys and Sorrows
of the congregation, but I was seething so badly I felt like I was hovering off
my pew. I did the bad-habit thing of planning what I was going to write on the
minister’s facebook page after the service. I wanted to start typing then and
there, but that seemed beyond the pale. I tried joining in the singing, but
everything felt dissonant and out of whack.
SURELY once McKinley knew about this, he would fix it,
right? SURELY he would understand what the problem was?
Spoilers:
1. He
SORT OF understood.
2. The
service was about to get even more egregiously fucked up.
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