Broadway Blessings 2011

For the past fourteen years, my friend, Retta Blaney, has produced this wonderful concert evening in early September at the beautiful Cathedral of St. John The Divine at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street in Manhattan. This year, it is Monday, September 12th at 7:00 p.m. Retta is an author, an avid theatre lover and a reviewer, whose blog can be found at: uponthesacredstage.blogspot.com She produces this evening to ask God to bless the upcoming Broadway season. I've been to several of her Broadway Blessings concerts, and she always has inspiring speakers, wonderful guest singers, the Broadway Blessings Choir and beautiful dancers. I've heard Frances Sternhagen and Marian Seldes speak, and J. Mark McVey sing. This year, Richard Maltby will speak, Natalie Toro will sing, and Retta asked me to write a song for the fifteenth year anniversary, which I was happy to do--and this song, I'll Carry You, will be sung by Tony Haris.

This year's concert is the day after the tenth anniversary of 9/11 here in NYC. When I was writing the song, I wanted the theme of it to be that artistic endeavors--such a part of the human spirit in nature--are oftentimes collaborations between the human spirit and the Divine spirit, and that ultimately, God carries us. It's not like it's a "magic carpet ride"--but often, the place we arrive at at journey's end is so much richer and greater than we could ever plan ourselves. For those of you who can't be there this Monday evening because you live in other places, and in honor of those who worked tirelessly on behalf of rescue and recovery of 9/11, and in loving memory of those who left this world for what I pray is a more peaceful one, and to my friend, Frank Contursi, this song is dedicated.

I'll Carry You
words and music by Phil Hall

You wonder if you'll ever find the answers
Before you even get the questions out.
You wonder what life means before you live it
But, my child, that's not what living's all about.
You worry things will always come the hard way
And that you'll have to do it all alone.
When you can't find your way
And you look up and say
"Won't somebody help me?
I don't know what to do"

That's when I'll carry you
I'll carry you
Though you think you can't make it.
I'll see you through
There's no place you can go
That I won't be there too
So let's get on with the journey.

You'll find this world needs just what you bring to it
A reaffirming gesture or a smile
And should you come across someone who's lonely
Ask them to come walk with you a while.
In all you do and say--show them what love is
You'll look around and wonder where to start
"God, how can I do
All You want me to?
What You did for Your Son,
Will You do for me too?"

That's when I'll carry you
I'll carry you
Like I carried My Son
I'll see you through
There's no place you can go
That I won't be there too
So let's get on with the journey.

When finally you lay down to sleep
And pray that the Lord your soul will keep
And should you die before you wake
You pray that the Lord, your soul will take

That's when I'll carry you
I'll carry you
When your life's work is ended
I'll see you through
There's no place you can go
That I won't be there too
But there is so much more of the journey.

Ev'ry step we've walked together
You've been something to behold
So let's get on with the journey.

Seeking the Republican presidential nomination, in this corner--Michele Bachmann

It both saddened and surprised me to read in the NY Times this morning Michele Bachmann, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, was quoted as saying to a Christian television network about a same-sex marriage ban she proposed that “In our public schools, whether they want to or not, they’ll be forced to start teaching that same-sex marriage is equal, that it is normal and that children should try it.” Wow, what world does this woman live in? Mrs. Bachmann has likened homosexuality to “personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” When her husband, who runs Bachmann and Associates, a Christian counseling center was asked if the center practices reparative therapy (gay-to-straight counseling which goal is heterosexual relations and marriage or lifelong sexual celibacy), he said “We don’t have an agenda of trying to change someone.” Methinks they do have quite an agenda. In an interview on a Christian radio show last year, Dr. Bachmann said young people must be discouraged from acting on homosexual feelings, just as “barbarians need to be educated.” I agree that “barbarians need to be educated” but I believe I differ with Dr. Bachmann on just who the barbarians are.

If two heterosexual men or women were stranded on a desert island for the rest of their lives, nothing either could do or say could make the other change their sexual orientation. Even if they were to have sex with one another out of boredom or lack of other choices, that still would not and could not change their heterosexual orientation any more than acknowledging that a certain percentage of the world (myself included) finds love, relationship, and sex within the same sex. That acknowledgment does not make it suddenly the “in” thing to try homosexuality out as a lark. I’m astonished that, in the year of 2011, in educated circles--fundamentally Christian people believe that gay people proselytize to convert heterosexual people to become homosexual people. It's impossible to change a person's sexual identity. If a teenager tries out homosexuality, it is generally because he or she has some interest in trying it out, or some curiosity about it. Those heterosexually inclined teenagers will likely not even experiment since they are not drawn to it, and not curious about it. And even if a curious teen tries it out, if that’s not the teen’s orientation, the teen will remain heterosexual.

Back in the sixties, when I was growing up, it saddens me to say that African American people sat in the back of the city bus. They had their own bathrooms, their own water fountains, and sometimes were relegated to stay at only certain hotels. Even great artists like Peggy Lee, who encountered prejudice against her players, had the backbone to not stay at hotels where her band was not welcome. Famous African American classical singers encountered similar prejudice because they were talented African American performers in a white society. It is sad and ludicrous that, then, we Christian people could open our hearts to everything but the color of another person’s skin. Happily, they fought for their civil rights, which they richly deserved, and won them. It was the right thing to do, and now African American people are both a fully-integrated and cherished part of the fabric of America (which is, ironically, a country of immigrants).

And now lgbt people fight for their civil rights. I personally do not care if history books ever teach that same-sex marriage is equal—only that it exists to legally protect the rights of two people of the same sex who happen to fall in love with one another, and desire to spend their lives together. I personally do not care if history books ever teach that same-sex marriage is normal, whatever that means. I think history books tend to document rather than make moral and ethical assessments of historical events. But history should teach that same-sex marriage became an option, with no malice implied. And neither history nor its teachers will ever encourage that “children should try it,” any more than they’ll encourage them to try plagues, famines or natural disasters.

I know that most fundamental, conservative Christians might think I live my life in sin—and there’s precious little I can do about that in my lifetime. But the same God who created and loves them just as they are created and loves me just as I am.

Happy Pride Weekend

Sometimes serendipity occurs synchronistically. I was talking to a friend of mine who told me that, when he first realized he was gay, he thought he could shelve those feelings, or, as they say in the new musical, The Book of Mormon--that he could Turn It Off. He joined a Catholic religious community of men, which order he even led through twenty-seven abuse cases to resolve the awful crimes against children. At age sixty, he wrote a dating profile that got forwarded to the Bishop, and he was asked to leave the order.

Now, interestingly enough, even I--thirty years ago--would have thought to myself, "Poor man. Here he is trying to be who he is and is asked to leave his religious community for doing so, or--as he so beautifully put it--"freed by my lack of integrity and search for integrity." But look what time brings, for which I'm eternally grateful--a new improved perspective on my part.

Now, I'm certain that being asked to leave a religious order at which one has served for twenty-seven years felt to him like a rug had been pulled out from underneath him. And I don't mean to minimize the psychic terror of "coming out" not only in life, but especially after having served in a religious community for such a long time. But, today, I see what happened to him as something that God's hand was all over. I think his writing a dating profile was the catalyst that removed him from his religious order, but brought him more fully into a sense of his authentic self.

I remember years ago, a partner of mine's family was holding an integrated party of children at their home in the community of Hurricane (aptly named, near Wake Forest) in North Carolina when someone shot seventeen bullets into their front window. Fortunately, physically no one was injured, but my partner's father was resigned from his position of Minister at his church the Sunday that followed. Back then, in the 60s in the south, the sort of hate that surrounded acceptance of African-American people by white people was at full tilt as we began a slow, but more complete and organic sense of integration. Happily, with an African-American President of the United States, we've come a long way since then.

This gentleman's story seemed to spark in me a sense of genuine pride, be it gay or human. Another person, with God's help, has put himself (/herself) on the path to wholeness from which hope springs eternal. And that excites me. Happy Pride weekend, indeed!