living with risk

"There is a risk to having a vision of the world as it should be, and then having the courage to live as though that vision is already here"

--Bishop V. Gene Robinson


I saw Gene Robinson speak this past winter at the Creating Change conference when it was in Detroit. Although I don't usually gush over boys, he gave a speech that moved me tremendously. He links heterosexism to patriarchy; that in order to combat heterosexism we have to fight patriarchy (he also prefers heterosexism to homophobia as it addresses the oppressor as the person who needs to make the change). Brother Gene is indeed living in a world of risk; he talks about smashing the very system he has benefited from his whole life.

I was thinking about Bishop Robinson after a hard week dealing with religion (my mother's) and sexuality (my own). I came out to my parents almost 6 years ago, and last week had a conversation that apparently had been brewing for some years now. Not a fight about what the Bible says and what it doesn't, not a fight about choice vs. nature, we've had those before. This one was different. This one was...vulnerable...it was open to risk...it involved lines in the sand...it involved pleas for validation...For the first time in my life, it involved me standing firm and saying "No, not good enough" "I do not care about making you or anyone else in my family uncomfortable" I did listen, I did try to reason, I did name what was at stake, I did own my identity as an out lesbian feminist. I did not apologize. I did not cushion. I did not accept being "tolerated" I lived as though my vision for my relationship with my mother was already here....and I suffered losses.


The reason we are not more radical as a society is because it is hard. It is lonely. It is risky. We live the life we live now because there are those that came before who suffered great losses. If we do not live radically, then we dishonor those losses -We surf on the coat tails of those living out loud, wide open- We call radical people "crazy", we put them down because they make us uncomfortable, we sacrifice relationships with our daughters because we cannot face the possibility that our views, our religion have led us astray. Because if they have led us astray...then what? If my mother chooses a relationship with her daughter over the "moral code" of her religion… then what? Then she has to question what she has been taught, then she has to rethink her foundations, she has to open herself up to the unknown...to risk.


And that, y'all, is frightening as hell.

Be radical brothers and sisters. Be radical because someone has to be. Be radical because it is harder. Because when things are harder...they are almost always the better choice. It is harder to speak up and say something, it is harder intervene, hell, it is harder put the cigarette or wad of gum in a piece of paper, shove it in your pocket and wait for a trash can then it is to throw it on the ground.
I am not perfect. I strive everyday to do the thing that is harder, because it is the right thing to do. I still have a long way to go... But just think about it in your days: Am I doing this/not doing this because it is right or because it is easier to do/not do it? Am I not being radical, am I not taking risks because it is easier? And y'all I am here to tell you, there are losses either way.

I drew a line in the sand and I suffered losses. But the losses I would have suffered by just letting things be would have cut far more deep....

-QC


A great video of Gene Robinson, a religious leader who is out and a white male is who is fighting patriarchy. Fighting against that which gives you privilege...now that is radical.

Start watching at 2:24 for some great stuff…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKeTNqs96PI