Love Notes #22

O dearest friends and dearest family,

There are so many who would have you be something you clearly know you are not. But those who howl like dogs (Psalm 59) against all they don’t understand and don’t WANT to understand cannot ever compare to the magnificence of your essence, the great gift of the image of God reflected in you and your own particular experience. I hope you will never forget that “God has made of one blood all peoples of this earth” (Acts 17:26) and that God doesn’t make what God doesn’t love. Everything God created, God called “good,” and you are one of those blessed, beautiful works. Many with microphones also have ignorance. They have fear. They have no true faith in a God bigger than their own knowledge. But they are not the ones in your wider family. We who know are here too. We who care and who want–and NEED–you to thrive are rising and opening protective arms. We are lifting voices and we will give sanctuary and hope as best we know. You will not be erased, and you will not be alone. Pity those who do not have wisdom and who do not appear to have love. They cannot see what love and gift you are. But that doesn’t change the love and gift you are to us and to God. All through history God has made and sent those who saw and lived differently in order to celebrate the power of love, the insights that come from the outside perspective, the chance to prove our humanity in the embrace of all. This is what so many of us are trying to do. You are loved and lovely, being and becoming just as you and the Lord may decide. It is no easy thing to stand against a dominant and domineering paradigm. But you will never be standing alone as long as I and others like me draw breath. 

Be strong, Be well, Be lovely, Be Safe, Beloved. We are with you and will do all we can.

With all the love and peace that overturns worlds,

Rev. Kent H. Gilbert
Pastor, Union Church
Berea, KY