Interview with Carol Lynn Pearson: Keeping our children and grandchildren alive
Photo from CarolLynnPearson.com
On October 18, 2022, Marci McPhee and Kathleen Cramer interviewed Carol Lynn Pearson, drinking deeply of her wisdom and experience, generously shared. Here is a short excerpt from that interview. Part 2 of 2. (See Part 1 here: “Running the Church vs. seeing the damage.”)
Marci: How can we keep our LGBTQ children and grandchildren alive? Keeping them alive and keeping them in the Church are two different things; I'll settle for alive. I have sixteen grandchildren and I used to count them boys and girls, but that is increasingly meaningless. Of the sixteen, I have two trans grandkids and three that are gender fluid, I guess you might say.
Kathleen: Do you know what Marci does? She loves them and accepts them. A radical thought, I know.
Carol Lynn: Marci, how dare you love them and accept them. Did you ask your bishop if you could do that? I love that you lean in on that one.
Marci: Aw, thanks, both of you. Trans, gender fluid – I just paint all of it with a queer brush. They are the same adorable little imps and scallywags that they were before. I adored them before and I adore them now, and all that stuff about their sexuality? It’s back to your statement about what's my business, what's other people's business, and what's God's business: their sexuality is none of Grammy's business.
Carol Lynn: That's true. Your motto all along has been just love them and be there for them. Listen, support – that is your business. You are doing everything you can to keep them alive, to keep them feeling comfortable in their being-ness and how they want to show up. That is kind and generous and all the good things that Jesus taught; that is your business.
All the major religions have the golden rule in different words. That can be the basis for what we teach our children and our grandchildren, which is a very, very strong floor to walk on. Atheists can come up with the same idea. People who are not of any religion can be extraordinarily moral, ethical, excellent, generous people.
A lot of different churches, including my church, claim authority from God to say who can belong to their church. And then I come along with no authority whatsoever, and claim the authority through the power of love to pronounce that these people should exist as themselves because God is love. I claim authority through no authority at all. I, having authority of neither church nor state, claim my own personal authority to express my own appreciation for and pronounce my own blessing upon the beautiful LGBTQ sisters and brothers. They are already pronounced blessings by the authority of love. And because God is love, I am quite certain that indeed they are blessed by God.
Back to the golden rule. If you’re going to ask the LGBTQ community to be celibate, why, you should do the same. Indeed, yes. Let's all make the decision together. Are we all going to be celibate? Or are we all going to engage in monogamous, committed, loving, intimate relationships and be human – fully human – living our lives, and doing those things that humans are meant to do authentically and fully? That sounds good to me.
I bless you that all the good things that you are doing now and want to do can be magnified and blessed. And so it is. Amen, amen, and amen.