I have simply seen too much good fruit born from the tree of the life of gay and lesbian priests, as well as gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships, to dismiss this as other than God’s blessing. And, conversely, I have seen so much ill fruit born on the tree of life of those whose speech is filled with contempt for those who do not condemn gay and lesbian people, not to have noticed the parallel correspondence. [From this blog]This quote caused me to pause. I took a mini-trip down memory lane. I traveled back to the day when I was in bible college (15 years ago) and I had to give my testimony. I remember it to this day because a friend of mine teased me for incorrectly referencing a bible verse.
I stood up in front of all the faculty and students and I said "I don't want to do anything that doesn't bear apples." Really I was meaning bear fruit and produce growth from the New Testament version about knowing a person by the fruit their life produces. (Luke 6:43 "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit--and Matthew 7, 21, Luke 6, 13, John 15, Romans 7....)
The combination of memory lane and this quote has a fruit of it's own. And that is the thought that the fruit of love and grace and wisdom has not decreased for me in the last year or so of this journey, but has increased. Well, actually how can one know this about themselves, but it feels like there's a larger space and freedom for these attributes as well as some others. And I wonder sitting here what it might mean to see the entire church as a field fruit trees. I think most tree's have a mix of good fruit and fruit that never was given away. It just has sat on the branch and died.
I suppose this is just my ever-present longing for "the third way" or new analogies and metaphor's in life. I don't think polarities ever hold salvation or resolution, especially when it comes to topics like homosexuality.
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