Lying for the Truth

A lesbian poet’s words once saved my life,

and since then

I’ve had trouble saying it’s wrong to be gay.

Women blessing the Eucharist fed my soul

and since then

I’ve had trouble saying it’s wrong to be a woman ordained to serve the Holy Bread. 

The beauty of their lives touched me, torched me,

And I don’t want to be against reason,

but doctrinal purity,

an inability to admit the sacred text and its tradition could be limited by culture, era, its own human authors,

seems an excuse to never apologize, to never admit wrong. 

To stand for orthodoxy while everyone around you dies in the Inquisition

seems the opposite of love.

You demand compliance for your shouted dogma

Shun anyone who disagrees and delight that you’ve consigned them to hell.

This is hatred. This is loving your neighbor as your enemy.

It seems in other ideologies, the trappings of culture can be shed for truth. Not so with Christianity. It seems entrenched. And anything limited by culture becomes limited by doctrine and can never be rescinded. 

Or, if we do, we rewrite our history. 

And in doing so we lie. 

I'd rather be an honest heretic
than a lying believer. 

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