Pittsburgh 2011 seemed to be a week in which I was called to have difficult conversations with people who have a very restrictive view of sexuality. Though it was exhausting work, I did find moments of respite with good friends along the way, in an effort to stay energized.

We experienced something new this year: the conversation room. Our teaching position on sexuality in the Mennonite church has included a “dialogue” clause for as long as we’ve had one. And yet, dialogue has rarely (if ever) happened in a healthy and constructive way at the denomination’s gatherings. Dialogue DID happen in Pittsburgh thanks to the conversation room.

I was invited to be one of the first speakers the afternoon we discussed “The Church and the Role of Teaching Positions, Dialogue and Discernment.” I am posting my notes for the 4 minutes I prepared. Please be warned: these are NOTES, and not a polished, finished piece…

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Deb Bergen sent this reflection to us at [email protected].  (If you have a story, reflection, or creative writing to share with the Pink Menno community, please don’t hold back! We would love to publish it here!)  Deb was not at the Pittsburgh convention, but sent two prayer shawls for us to have available in the Hospitality Room. (I understood them to be prayer shawls; please correct me if I’m wrong, Deb).  Annabeth texted me as she was beginning to set up for this communion service on Thursday asking me to bring Pink Menno bandanas to brighten up the communion tables.  I grabbed Deb’s beautiful pink/orange piece and brought it along (pictured below).

Please enjoy Deb’s beautiful description of her work, her vision, and her pink perspective.  [PK]

Deb's orange and hot pink knitwork on the table, part of a communion of sustenance that took place on Thursday.

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a reflection by Deb Bergen

We are knit together. Sharing a geography, a passion, a skill set, a history or any other circle of connection pulls us in; members of MCUSA are knit in multiple ways. For the last year, my prayers for Pink Mennos have been channeled through yarns gathered from our local MCC store. God speaks to me through my hands, reminding me of the wonder of textures yielding or firm, flowing smooth or gathering in bunches. None of us come to church fresh out of the package; we are mysterious fibers brought out of our pasts. We ache to be relaxed together, but often enough it seems our interlocking strands will tear in the tension.

Two particular prayers emerged: soft rose and blues in waves to wrap around someone feeling the chill, and a dance of hot pink and orange in silk and cotton to celebrate gay Pentecost flames (and when what’s there for the main work can’t last till the end, others pick up, ending and beginning this prayer in the dark from which we come and into which we commit our own ends). These and some little pink roses were the only presence I could offer in the crucible where love would be offered and tested. They went with a friend, and with a prayer that good use would find them.

My daughter returned from conference last night with a story of passing the person carrying my prayer of/for celebration (a story knitting her and me closer to this Spirit-led movement). I could not have dreamed it would lift up the elements of our communion. Read more ›

Donna Minter originally posted the following reflection as a comment on the earlier post “The Conversation Room” by Stephanie Krehbiel. Since it can obviously stand alone as a PinkMennoPress post, I asked her permission to make it so. I’m sure there are many of who could write and share very insightful reflections on various aspects of the convention in Pittsburgh. Please consider doing so in order to continue our documentation on this site and more importantly to help those who weren’t hear to build a more complete sense of the experience, so that they may share in our hope and energy going forward.  Contact me (Philip at [email protected]) if you would like to share your writing, photos, or video with other Pink Mennos.

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“A Reflection on the Conversation”

by Donna Minter

This was my first MC-USA convention, my first time being a delegate, and my first time participating in a Pink Menno gathering as a LGBT Ally. Thank you for this opportunity to be a part of this community within OUR complicated and intense church family. I wanted to be a delegate from Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis because I wanted to represent my congregation. I also wanted very much to an active listening presence with those in MC-USA who hold traditional Christian views and often have had quite limited, if any, contact with LGBT people. I hoped to have multiple opportunities to share with these same people that, as a long time Scripture loving and reading, prayerful, playful, and active peacebuilding follower of Jesus, I respectfully have a different view. I also hoped to have the opportunity to share with them of the trauma my gay friends and extended family members have experienced in the name of their specific Biblical interpretations and practice.

While I have no doubt there were those who caste me in the Scarlet Letter role and avoided contact because of evidence of pinkness, I decided that with these folks, simply being a pink presence at a viewing/staring distance was witness enough for them. Read more ›

Our week in Pittsburgh has been many things: intense, exhausting, reviving, hopeful, infuriating, disappointing, healing.  The range of emotion and experience is wide, but in the end, I have faith that we have fulfilled our purpose for this time and place.

We have made our pink selves seen and known as unarguably joyful, peaceful, loving, Christ-like people in the midst of our complicated church family.

We have honored the tradition of singing together with only our voices as instruments, powered by breath and spirit and heart.

We have agreed to enter into conversation spaces in which understanding and connection do happen, where walls of fear and distrust begin to crumble, where love is true and the Spirit is present, but also where power is distributed unequally, where emotional and spiritual boundaries are crossed, and where words inflict pain that go unaddressed.

We have, whenever possible, responded lovingly to unfair accusations, to stares from a distance, to hurtful words, and to the painful silencing of our voice as members of MCUSA and as fellow children of God.

And most importantly, we have shared our stories with one another, forming spiritual bonds that no imperfect, human church can break and that no statement or teaching position can invalidate.

This week has brought many things into focus for me. Read more ›