Queer thistles

So I’ve been obsessing about the lawn lately. Wanna make something of it? Every week, rain or shine --- as long as it keeps raining --- the grass has to be cut during the narrow window of time I’m in Chariton or first me, then the neighbors and finally the city become distressed. There’s a lot of time to think, riding the old Snapper around and around the back 40 --- and I’ve started to think while playing lawnmower cowboy of that expanse of green as a paradigm.

I came back to early this week to hear our own Dean Genth speak during the Mason City PFLAG chapter’s regular meeting about his experiences as mentor and coordinator of logistics on the east bus of this year’s Soulforce Equality Ride March 1-April 26.

Soul Force (mission statement: "The purpose of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.") , co-founded by the Rev. Mel White and his partner, Gary Nixon (pictured at the top of this post, right and left respectively), launched the Equality Ride last year. The goal is to witness in an explicitly Christian and non-violent manner at a variety of church-related colleges that either reject outright or severely restrict LGBT youngsters. Approximately 50 young people participated in east and west bus rides this year, accompanied by a couple of older mentors --- like Dean.

It was an illuminating presentation. Dean’s east bus commenced its route at Dordt College (Reformed) in Sioux Center, Iowa, and after traveling through the South, Southeast, Northeast and eastern Midwest ended the trip at Bethany College in Mankato, Minn. The stop at Bethany intrigued me especially since I was baptized and confirmed in a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which owns Bethany and has its seminary there.

Although received civilly at Dordt and somewhat confusedly at Bethany (visions of frozen Lutherans peering from behind the blinds as an army of gays proclaiming the gospel advanced across the campus lawn), some fairly awful things happened to the riders, especially in the South. Strip and body-cavity searches during incarceration after being arrested for “chalking” a sidewalk at Baylor University in Texas, that bastion of Southern Baptists, for example.

So I was glad I sat in on the meeting. It’s useful to be reminded of just how many self-proclaimed Christians are scared shitless by us and how narrow the line between being scared and being hateful is.

I came home and started thinking about my diversity lawn --- I warned you this was going to be about grass. Like I’ve said before, the neighbor has a conservative Christian lawn --- regularly patrolled with spray can in hand to kill anything unworthy.

My lawn is more or less as God planted it: About 60 percent bluegrass with the other 40 percent comprising dandelions, creeping Charlie, crabgrass, quite a few plants I can’t name and even a thistle or two. So which among that natural mix are we? Personally, I like creeping Charlie --- ubiquitous, tenacious and a lovely shade of blue when it blooms. But I’d settle for dandelion, same toughness and a bright yellow bloom to boot. But thanks be to God for the occasional queer thistle, too.