
	AGW Welcome		The Witness Magazine

Advent and World AIDS Day

By William Blaine-Wallace

On Mondays, I moonlight as a family therapist at The Salem Center, a community of therapists committed to a postmodern way of sitting with hurting people.

A couple of weeks ago, during supervision, I was, for the zillionth time over the course of my life, wrestling with the bear of inferiority. The beast was winning again.

Steve, my supervisor, friend and colleague – postmodern doesn't truck much in hierarchy – wondered what all the dying people with AIDS I cared for in the 1980's and 90's would say about me. He asked if they, too, would rate me as low-grade.

After I mumbled something, Steve asked if he could interview one of the dead persons I cared for. He wanted to interview her or him about me. He didn't push the issue. He said that we could talk about other things with my peers until I decided.

I first said that I couldn't imagine picking just one, there were thousands. Then, I remembered Wayne.

I met Wayne when he came for grief counseling following his lover's death. Later, Wayne and I became friends and colleagues. We went to high schools and churches to talk about AIDS. Wayne coached me back to parish ministry, after he heard me complain, again and again, that being CEO of a health care organization had little to do with pastoral presence. Right before Wayne died, in response to what he called his last wish, we drove around the back roads of Massachusetts towns like Lincoln and Concord to experience the fall foliage. A couple of weeks later, Wayne died at my pad, The Hospice at Mission Hill. I heard about Wayne's death while teaching an in-service at AIDS Action. I left Clarendon Street immediately after the workshop, made my way to Parker Hill Avenue, and sat with Wayne's body for a good long while.

Yes, Steve, you may interview Wayne.

Steve pulled his chair in front of me, leaned over and said, “So, Wayne, how are you?” “Well, Steve, I'm dead. I've been that way for about twelve years.” “So, Wayne, what is it like to be dead?”

About 45 minutes later, the interview ended. My inferiority wasn't cured; it was forgotten. My refreshed heart had relocated inferiority to the category of another cheap brand of angst oozing from the first world's most flimsy and infamous invention – THE SELF.

Steve's interview with Wayne quickened my lapsed heart.

Lately, my heart has been numbed by the institutional church's fight for solvency with the velvet-gloved fist of irrelevancy (Who can marry whom?). Drained by an ever-expanding leak in our coffers, mostly caused by the more-expensive-than-God buildings we gather in. Filleted by a murderous morality that blesses killing fields and seeks to ban abortions. Oh, but isn't abortion murderous? No, not when we compare the thousands and thousands of babies who have died across the globe from hunger and disease caused by the present administration's imposition of pro-life criteria on international agencies, which are dependent on our food and drugs. Pro-birth, according to Catholic nun Joan Chissiter, isn't necessarily pro-life.

Thank you, Wayne, for taking me back to a time when church was the wonderfully unorthodox and scrumptiously disorganized company of the dispossessed. It's a place I plan to stay.

When people come together through suffering there's a good chance that they will stand against suffering. Their stance more than likely puts a dent in suffering. Draw a bold circle around the crease, for it is a mark of love. The mark of love is the cornerstone of authentic church. Institutional church – [marked by addresses such as] 15 Newbury, 138 Tremont, 815 Second Avenue, Lambeth Palace, as well as every other tent in the Christian tribe – is measured by and accountable to the cornerstone of such love.

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Paul's words to the Romans about love were honed in jail cells and back rooms crammed with those who were being hunted down for hunkering with the Spirit of One who was executed for standing with the suffering against suffering to put a dent in suffering.

I don't want to romanticize love born from shared suffering. The community of the broken, as it breeds love, is messy business.

I remember the early 90's, when the rooms at The Hospice at Mission Hill began to be occupied less by gay men with copies of Mapplethorpe prints on their walls, and more by minorities with needle marks on their arms. A community that mostly mirrored one another's social location, became a community mystified by the social dislocation characterized by mixed tastes (stuffing for some, dressing for others), and competing sounds (Patsy Cline and Ice T). Still, the same question was asked of each by each: “Do you have some word for me?” The answers were muddled, as each struggled to break down long-held assumptions about the other. Confused as familiar ways of relating fell short. Chaotic as tried and true formularies of care failed to make a difference. Still, we made our way towards Beulah Land.

World AIDS Day, which we acknowledge on December 1st, is not another insertion into our liturgies of a cause we might make a contribution to. Rather, it is the invitation from millions of suffering people around the world to wade into the messiness of their annihilation, waters where Grace pulls us under our competency, breaks the surface of our sufficiency, and bites us on the ass of our assurance. Most all that remains after Grace has her way with us is one another, which is more than we have going for us on the shore.

Advent is about getting ready for the unexpected in-breaking of Grace, the sought after and serendipitous alchemy of justice and mercy, which Jesus named the reign of heaven.

Getting ready means wading into the waters of suffering as the suffering with the suffering. It could be the most suffering we presently bring into the public bath is a bland spiritual frostbite, something like the inferiority neurosis of the privileged. We bring what we have.

The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace is rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston, Mass. Bill may be reached by email at bb-w@emmanuel-boston.org .