God of My Understanding: Becoming a Spiritual Force

By Jacqueline Lois

What church looks like is changing!
Opportunities for spiritual growth, engagement, building community and exploring your passion is a challenge. In creating a new denomination that seeks to reach out to many people who never felt at home or previously rejected by church and organized religion.
This is an opportunity to hear their stories.
A writer’s ministry; a ministry of writers as a priesthood of believers.

The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington (MCC Washington or MCC DC) was founded in 1970 by Rev. J. E. Paul Breton as the Community Church of Washington, D.C. It was chartered on May 11, 1971 by the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. This year we celebrate 50 years of a beloved community that continues to grow in the experience of knowing the God of our understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669803348

Jacqueline Lois

Jacqueline Lois ( nee Strachan) is a native New Yorker born in the Urban Wilderness of 135th Street in Harlem. She finally returns to her first love of writing, poetry and story telling during the great pandemic of 2020 while living on a farm in Maryland. She finally can finally sit and see the forest for the trees. She holds a BA in American Civilization and Psychology from Williams College; a Master’s in Counseling from Howard University as well as a degree in Nursing from Montgomery College and Certification in Nurse Midwifery from the then University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jacqueline Lois.

Cover Photo Credits: November 10, 2020. Fort Totten Drive, Washington, DC

Danny O’Neal. God has said, Never will I leave you Never will I forsake you.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/14/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

820881

Book dedicated to

Rev. Dr. Robin Hawley Gorsline

John Merriweather

Frank Wirmusky

Rev. Cathy Alexander

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Preface

VOICES Of MCCDC

Snow Sister Friend Biblical Scholar

Someone Old, Someone New. Appropriateness Borrowed, Feeling Blue

Warriors Guardians Keepers Of The Order

Pew Brother

Cogic Freedom

My Three Favorite Pastor Dwayne Sermons Becoming A Spiritual Force A Twenty-First-Century Digital Church

Theologian Writing Ministry Sexuality And Spirituality Social Justice Activist

Poet Writer Griot

AIDS And The Promises Of God

Communion Celebrants Unlikely Friends

Appendices

MCCDC Prayer/Reflection Sheets

Selected Advent Devotionals

Selected Lenten Devotionals

Bible Study 2020

MCCDC Bible Study Lesson Plan 2021

Changes In The Liturgy

Afterword

Photo Credits

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gratitude for writing as

spiritual practice

You Are

the Living Word

Put out of your life hate and lying. Do not pretend to be someone you are not. Do not always want something someone else has. Do not say bad things about other people. ² As new babies want milk, you should want to drink the pure milk which is God’s Word so you will grow up and be saved from the punishment of sin. ³ If you have tasted of the Lord, you know how good He is.

—1 Peter 2

Pray at NOON

MCCDC:

Becoming

a

Spiritual

Force

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Praying at the altar with Rev. Dwayne and Rev. Cathy

Throughout our history, MCCDC has offered songs that cry out for justice and mercy for oppressed and forgotten people. We have been known as the gay church, the church with AIDS, the human rights church, the justice-seeking church, and the equality-seeking church. We will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to share our gifts; become a growing spiritual force for compassion, justice, and equality; and partner with other communities and organizations.

ASPIRATION: BECOMING A SPIRITUAL FORCE

ASPIRATION: GROWING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

ASPIRATION: CONNECTING AND ENGAGING

ASPIRATION: BUILDING OUR GENEROUS HOME

Metropolitan Community Churches

Statement of Faith

Preamble

M ETROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCHES is one chapter in the story of the Church, the Body of Christ. We are people on a journey, learning to live into our spirituality, while affirming our bodies, our genders, our sexualities. We don’t all believe exactly the same things. And yet in the midst of our diversity, we build community, grounded in God’s radically inclusive love for all people. We are part of an ongoing conversation on matters of belief and faith, shaped by scripture and the historic creeds, building on those who have come before us. Our chapter begins when God says to us: Come, taste, and see.

Our Faith

Come, taste, and see. Jesus Christ, You invite all people to Your open table. You make us Your people, a beloved community. You restore the joy of our relationship with God, even in the midst of loneliness, despair, and degradation. We are each unique and we all belong, a priesthood of all believers. Baptized and filled with Your Holy Spirit, You empower us to be Your healing presence in a hurting world.

We expect to see Your reign on earth as it is in heaven as we work toward a world where everyone has enough, wars cease, and all creation lives in harmony. We affirm Your charge to all of humanity to care for the land, sea, and air. Therefore, we will actively resist systems and structures which are destroying Your creation.

With all of creation we worship You—every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. We know You by many names, Triune God, beyond comprehension, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, who invites us to the feast.

Amen.

Added to MCC Core Documents: July 5, 2016

PROLOGUE

The Invitation

Becoming a Spiritual Force

L AST YEAR DURING the Advent season, I wrote a devotional, which in some ways seems rather prophetic as I wondered out loud in this passage about this topic:

What does becoming a spiritual force in the community look like? If writing is both my ministry and my spiritual practice, how do I become more comfortable in being a source of hope and encouragement? How do I wake each morning seeking God in new mercies, seeking courage to find peace and joy in my own way, no matter what it looks like or seems like at any given moment?

Setting your intentions

Writing it down

Gave

Gives

You

It

Extraordinary power

How do we prepare to set about in a very disciplined way to write as much as we possibly can about all sorts of things?

In community, the invitation to write has been extended to me as opportunities for me to write and grow spiritually.

This book first and foremost is a body of work that shows what happens when seeds are planted in the dark. Things grow when we write together, pray together, and look for ways in the strangest places with the most ordinary people to share God’s love.

We have also looked for ways to share what we have been writing and learning about ourselves within community with one another.

While writing in every respect is, at its core, a solitary activity, we learned that when we gathered in small groups, we have provided many intellectual, emotional, and fun experiences to encourage study, to read, and YES, to write more things down, and not so surprisingly, we grew spiritually and became a spiritual force.

This experience of both writing and gathering is the glue that allows for the space to exist for dialogue. We unexpectedly learned how dialogue for people from many different backgrounds and ways of being to practice conversation can create more spaces for dialogue and to learn about new ways of being.

We all go through seasons and weather storms. We develop resilience to handle situations that would be truly unbearable if we all had to face them alone.

This volume will allow you to read our work, sit a minute, reflect, and even if you don’t write, perhaps you will read something that resonates within you that allows for better human connections as well as with the God of your understanding.

We wanted to provide multiple ways to show how writing and telling your story can heal you and the spaces around you. We encourage people to tell their story, but we also encourage folks to make time to listen to other stories as well with an open heart and mind. Some of us have found this a very sweet way to find a closer relationship with God.

The book has three main sections. We have writers who write. We have folks who have such compelling stories but for whatever reasons have lacked the wherewithal to write them down or even to take the time to share their story with someone else who might be willing to listen even without fully understanding.

Some just needed a prompt as well as a bit of time to tell their stories. We were compelled to listen, to capture these precious jewels and write these stories down to share with them as an act of love and pastoral care.

Oral histories are a powerful tool for the narrator as well as the listener. It can be sacred work to listen and not talk. Having a transcript of the spoken word to reflect on is creating sacred ground. Even without analysis, discovery, listening, transcribing, writing, and reading can be a powerful tool for all. Any edits made are your own after listening and having time to reflect on your own words and what those words look like on paper.

In addition to my recollections of my own path and growth as a writer, we asked ten folks to contribute their own work as well. Four contributors agreed to participate in the oral history project. Two people were very interested in reading, editing, and otherwise curating other people’s work and stories.

We also found a way that people could write and share their stories or ask questions anonymously or without attribution. This willingness to continuously extend and tailor an invitation to the needs of each person is indeed the soul work of beloved communities. How do we explore and seek one another out for a better understanding? We found this to be especially true when we were not meeting or seeing one another in person regularly in the sanctuary or in social groups.

As we anticipate our fiftieth-year anniversary as a church community alongside the growth and need for our denomination, writing things down was a way to honor one another’s unique gifts but also a way to measure just how far we’ve come.

The pandemic has provided great suffering but also time for holy hibernation and introspection about what has been exacerbated, ignored, or exposed.

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Photo Credits: Prayer Collage Jerome Meadows

We struggle to breathe. We wear masks. We ask why, we rely on one another, we hold the light, we teach, we learn, we tell stories, we hold one another, we grow, we pray, and we love. We use the wisdom of these times and our ancestors who prepared us to hold on and to evolve and to know a love supreme.

History of MCCDC Writers’ Group

Early in 2016, I would say just before Valentine’s Day, Rev. Cathy Alexander, the associate pastor, called for a workshop—a writer’s retreat.

Remember this INVITATION.

Hi, everyone, and hope you are having a great day.

As people for whom we believe writing is an important spiritual practice, we wanted to personally invite you to join me and Rev. Robin and Rev. Dwayne to participate in a special time of spiritual discovery and sharing, Telling the Truths of Lent, on Saturday, February 13 at MCCDC. For four hours, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. (including lunch), we will explore our feelings, observations, hopes, and stories about Lent through the medium of the written Word (some of it spoken and perhaps even sung). There is no pressure to attend, yet we wanted to make you aware of the opportunity.

Each of us has a particular relationship with Lent, our own truths. Some grew up in traditions where it was ignored, others where it was very important, even in some cases being a time of heaviness. Some of us probably are not sure how we feel about it today. Writing about Lent—our stories, our fears, our hopes—is a way to make sense of it for this time and perhaps even to help us go forward in new spiritual ways.

The author Julia Cameron says, No matter how secular it may appear, writing is actually a spiritual tool. What she means, at least in part, is that when we undertake writing as a way to channel spiritual information, we can receive many gifts not otherwise available in our rushed lives. Some would call that writing through listening . . . listening to our hearts, our memories, our souls, our yearnings, our God—paying attention to what we hear and recording it.

That is not to say that we are mere ciphers, simply writing as if we were an autopen programmed by God or some power outside ourselves. We are responsible for what we hear and record even as we acknowledge a source greater than our rational minds. And we have the great opportunity to reflect on and provide order to what we receive—a process that can deepen our understanding and strengthen our spiritual living. It can even be fun at times!

So come bring your journal or pad and a pen—or your iPad or tablet or laptop—and let yourself be open to the creative process. Get ready to find more of your truth of Lent, perhaps grow spiritually from others’ truths and even expand the truths of others through sharing your own.

Please let Rev. Cathy know if you plan to attend (there are only seven spaces remaining, and we do need to know our number to prepare for lunch). Reply to this email or leave me a message at 202-638-7373, preferably by February 11. Also, please feel free to pass this invitation along to someone who you know who may be interested.

In 2017, some of us continued to gather at MCCDC.

AND WE WROTE AND WROTE AND WROTE!

While Reverend Robin provided guidance, structure, soup, and song, we wrote and shared a powerful vision of the God of OUR understanding through gathering together, corporate prayer, and holy conversation. Writing for some of us fills a deep spiritual need, allowing us to both speak and listen to Spirit.

Some of us for the first time ever shared what we wrote and had the opportunity to integrate our spirituality with our sexuality. Worship unrestricted with our whole self. This passion and creativity healed old wounds. We inspired one another. We came to know God. We also used our devotion time during Advent, Lent, and preparing for revival to share our response to the scripture and one another as we lived and worshipped as part of the beloved community.

As we finished our last writing session that summer, we promised the right REVEREND ROBIN that we would continue to write to honor his seasonal invitation but also to capture the true diversity we experience in worship. While we wrote collectively quarterly, it seemed to stimulate a core group more regularly while launching another group of writers who attended irregularly or for whom even if not members or the church longed for a space to discuss matters of the heart, spirituality, as well as their own personal journey with coming to understand God. Writing is also a discipline that we share that helps us as we understand God for ourselves.

Our goal primarily would be to WRITE and SHARE as you are able. We wanted to write devotionals for both the Advent and Lenten seasons. We also wanted to consider publishing our work to share what it is like to be at the open table with the great diversity of beliefs and experiences we have here as a part of the beloved community.

What would one year of writing and sharing through every liturgical season look like at MCCDC? Can you imagine the tapestry we might create? Many of us come from such rich faith traditions. Some of us