Sixteen Years Later: Still Claiming Blessings

Posted by: Susan Russell August 1, 2018 Events, Uncategorized

by Susan Russell, Senior Associate/Communications

Sixteen years ago today I moved into the corner cubicle in the “temporary building” in the north driveway on the campus of All Saints Church in Pasadena to begin a new chapter in my ministry as Executive Director of something called Claiming the Blessing (CTB). It was from that “corner office” I would spend the next 18 months traveling around the church giving more parish halls presentations, attending more strategy meetings and logging more travel miles than you could shake a stick at. (Case in point this moment from the Anglican Consultative Council “command appearance” in Nottingham in 2005.)

Claiming the Blessing was convened as an intentional collaborative ministry of leading Episcopal justice organizations (including Integrity, Oasis, Beyond Inclusion and the Episcopal Women’s Caucus) in partnership with the Witness magazine and other individual leaders in the Episcopal Church focused on: promoting wholeness in human relationships, abolishing prejudice and oppression, and healing the rift between sexuality and spirituality in the Church.

Those were our official marching orders.

We were also convened by some very smart equality activists — LGBTQ and straight allies — who not only recognized the truth that we were wasting precious energy competing with each other from our different “silo” organizations and ministries … and that the way we were going to make a difference was to [a] tell the truth about that [b] work to come up with achievable goals and then [c] collaborate on strategies to achieve them.

Since 2002, our advocacy has included liturgies for the blessing of same-sex relationships, equal access to all orders of ministry by qualified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender candidates and supporting civil and sacramental marriage equality.

I could tell lots and lots of stories about how that journey has played out over the last 16 years. Some of them can be found on our website. For others you’re going to have to wait for the book.

But suffice to say it is absolutely a true thing that the course of the history of the Episcopal Church … and I would be so bold as to say the wider movement for LGBTQ equality … was influenced by the decisions made at those first round table meetings at Vails Gate and the College of Preachers.

By the willingness of leaders to tell the truth to each other in order to triumph over turf wars and to forge partnerships and friendships that have stood the test of time. And the test of General Conventions. And the test of Lambeth Conference. And …

Well, you get the drift.

There are a boatload of pictures here. They end at General Convention 2015 in Salt Lake City where the Supreme Court made marriage for all legal in our nation and our General Convention changed the marriage canons and authorized liturgies for marriage for all couples. And in 2016 we had the chance to celebrate here at All Saints … photos from that Sunday here.

No the work isn’t done yet. But today — August 1, 2018 — I’m remembering showing up at All Saints Church with a couple of plastic crates of files and letterhead in my car and the warnings of some of my clergy colleagues in my ears that I was making a terrible mistake … that if I stepped out of parish ministry I’d never get back in … that I’d be marginalized as an “activist” and never get to exercise pastoral ministry … that I was limiting my options and …

Well, you get the drift.

I’m delighted they were wrong. I’m delighted that sixteen years at All Saints have given me more opportunities and challenges than I could ever have “asked for or imagined.” And most of all I’m delighted at the extraordinary privilege of being able to do this gospel work with the All Saints community and with a truly amazing cloud of witnesses around the church:

Ed Bacon, Katie Sherrod, Jim White, Sandye A Wilson, Elizabeth Kaeton, Michael Hopkins, John Clinton Bradley, Christine Mackey-Mason, Joseph Lane, Rosa Lee Harden, Kevin Jones, Peggy Adams, Cynthia Black, John Kirkley, Louie Clay, Kim Byham, Jason Samuel, Mike Clark, Bishop Gene Robinson … OMG … this is like an Oscar speech … who am I forgetting?