Putting my face on an issue

August 2, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

My partner and I have been about the psychic homework of re-constructing lost relationships. It is both spiritually moving and painful, rewarding and treacherous.

I will not talk about his psychic work, but my own. For one thing, my church Council has basically ordered me to attend the up-coming Churchwide Assembly next week. I am going to “put a face on the issue” of LGBT pastors serving in the Lutheran Church.

But it’s my face I am taking to Chicago, and it promises to be both rewarding and treacherous. When I was previously active in the ordained ministry, prior to 1988, I was known among a wide circle of people in Southern California, and hopefully well-regarded. No scandals, no missteps. The closet door was closed to all but the most trusted friends.

Then I was outed, and in a matter of months the rumor mill got to the Bishop’s ear. He was privately “supportive” but unwilling to defend me publicly. My ministry went down in flames in a matter of weeks. I vowed to myself and my partner that I would never go back into the closet even if it meant I never returned to the Lutheran ministry.

For sixteen years I worked in ordinary jobs, some of them challenging enough in their own right. Then came downsizing in the new economy, and my second career also went down in flames.

The psychic homework that began then is still going on, as the Spirit led me to reconstruct my life, or re-invent myself, all over again. When I was surprisingly called back to the ministry in 2004 by a congregation willing to take risk of discipline upon itself in order for us to work together, the psychic homework of reconstructing lost relationships took a huge step forward. Spiritually, both moving and painful, both rewarding but treacherous. As another pastor (not gay) said to me, “Dan, you’ve done very well in handling rejection in the past. But now you have to learn to handle acceptance.”

So the work continues as I face the Churchwide Assembly and prepare to put my face in the room with people from whom I had hid for many years, or who will only see my face connected to a rainbow stole and a social controversy. It is humbling and frightening to take this kind of risk. It reminds me of a book by a Jesuit, Powell I believe, called “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” This formative question came to him in a counseling session when a man answered it so succinctly: “Because you may not like who I am, and it’s all I’ve got.”

The psychic work — spiritual work — is to put myself out there, the only self that I’ve got, not knowing whether anyone will like who I am. Whether I will learn some new ways to handle acceptance, or be reminded of old ways I’ve handled rejection.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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