WE REMEMBER THE STONEWALL UPRISING! Tomorrow is the 45th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising that ignited the glowing embers of revolution in the long battle for Queer Equality. Today I wont go out and march, today I sit and reflect on all those who have died on this quest for freedom, and who will never see the promised land. Today my old friend Bernard Patrick Healy comes to mind. I met Bernie at Martin de Porres House (a Catholic Worker Community) in San Francisco in 1977, when Bernie was looking to be of Service as a way of maintaining his new-found sobriety. Bernie and I had a lot in common, Irish Catholic, gay men, social activists - both of us attended Roman Catholic seminaries, both received and filled our souls with the message of “damaged & unworthy” from the Holy-Mother-Roman-closeted-abusive-hypocritical-lying-Church! But it was 1970 and we lived in San Francisco, and the greatest life-affirming “liturgies” were on the streets, in the bars and in the jails! I wont tell all of our secrets (we worked by day in a Catholic Worker soup kitchen and worked by night at the Sutro Bath House to earn our bread money). No two people had so much fun feeding the poor by day, and partying with little money by night, returning home early enough in the morning to cook and serve the oatmeal before collapsing in bed! We didnt know at the time, but Bernie got AIDS, I didnt - no one knows why, it just WAS. I moved-on to Spokane went to graduate school and got my M.S.W. and later back home to Long Beach, and Bernie eventually moved to New York to attend General Seminary and get his M.Div. and was later ordained for Newark Diocese as an Episcopal priest by radical, forward-looking Bishop John Spong. Bernie became rector (chief pastor) at one of the poorest and most dangerous Churches in the downtown of the City of Newark. I last saw him when I went with him to Puerto Rico, a trip that was made short by up-stoppable diarrhea and rectal bleeding. He took disability retirement and soon thereafter died. I attended his wake and funeral in Newark. The night of the Wake I arrived and went directly to the church after a long time looking for a cab that would go to downtown. I found a cab that looked like an armored war vehicle. I arrived and was quickly dropped-off, stepping-over IV drug-users and their syringes, past burning trash cans (it was February I think), and across the police security perimeter (Bernie had been the Police Chaplain) and into House of Prayer Episcopal Church”, his church. The parish was old (1770s?). This church was built circa 1850 as a “plain church” and remodeled in 1870s into an almost gaudy Anglo Catholic Church that kept its Evangelical name - a perfect metaphorical dichotomy reflecting Bernies life journey and ministry. I was met with such an outpouring of love by his congregation - Bahamians, Africans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Jamaicans, and poor whites, all from the nearby frighteningly infamous public housing projects. There was also a number of middle class progressives from the burbs. The energy in that Holy Place was cacophonous and infectious! The people were arguing about vestments and which language for which hymn, running here and there cooking wash tubs full of dirty rice, jerk chicken, green salads, Jello, puddings (savory and sweet) and various recipes featuring beans of all colors, and mountains of desserts! (no Anglican water crest sandwiches and tea for this multicultural church)! People immediately began arguing whose home would host me - I knew Fr. Bernie from California, and they demanded stories from his old days in San Francisco - my edit mode went into full gear! Those days are a little cloudy in my mind and memory, but I remember one thing very clearly, a hymn sung by a man name Dana called “I Bid You Good Night My Brother”. He sang this traditional hymn using a Caribbean Bahamian beat. Never-ending rounds of choruses rang-out from the various ethnic and languages groups as they took turns singing verses, while people went up and touched the casket, saying loud good byes. I was told that Dana had sung this hymn to Bernie as he died at the home of Elizabeth Kaeton, the priest who also took charge of his church. And I’m not sure if this is true, but I remember congregants picking up the casket and passing it around the standing-room-only nave, each verse increasing in intensity and spiritual force until all of the voices merged into a spiritual ecstasy! All the while New England-challenged Bishop Spong nervously tried to sway his hips in a rhythmic fashion! I flew home home the next day, a Sunday morning in an over-sold plane full of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who I foolishly told I had just been to a funeral of a friend who died of AIDS. Hebrew and Yiddish exploded on this plane! Good part of the story, they fled and gave me a whole row to myself to sleep on and I had a delicious Kosher meal! Ill stop now. But please remember that we have no victims, only heroes that we honor. So remember Bernie Healy and the millions of others who lived and died for equality, on this 45th Anniversary of the Stonewall Bar Uprising! And speak out for those in places like Texas, Nigeria and other homophob I close with a version of the hymn “I Bid You Good Night” that I found on You Tube, enjoy:
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:44:13 +0000
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