There was talk in the parish in the early 2000s about the Blessing of Gay Unions. “Stephen deserves due credit,” they told me, “because he was beginning to feel that the Spirit was speaking and it was time to do this; we had been speaking about it for some time and now it seemed time to do it. We were blessed at the altar here, and we wear our rings.” “What joy,” I replied, and reminded them of Stephen’s remark to me during their reception in our parish hall: “Listen to this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we heard and saw this much hope, joy and love in the parish hall every Sunday?” I asked, “Can we talk a little now about how you perceive hospitality, broadly speaking, in our church today, and what you perceive as our challenges?” Lee responded, “I think it is sometimes shaky. There are so many services, and they are all great, but it divides the people; and it’s harder to be friendly with someone you don’t know. If you want to show up for church and simply be anonymous, you can do this. On the surface, we do so much and so well, people may think there may not be a place for them.” “Our strength is in our Eucharistic faith,” Robert said. “We are a University church. We must concentrate on our University community. We may sometimes neglect our outreach to them.” They continued on, telling me, “We are great, the best at organizing and running things, but we could improve on all of it. I think we should look way beyond our parish campus and move into the world, reaching out into the larger world. We could improve on coming out of ourselves and looking at the people who could come here. It’s easy to get caught up in our own conscious. What about other people who enter these walls for the first time and what they need? When we are not looking at the altar, we should be looking at the people. It’s not so much about launching programs but about all having an open attitude to embrace all who come. It’s really
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