One of my close friends has been very ill recently. We served as District Co-ordinators and Elders together. She is older than me and very experienced. She has coached and mentored me over many years. She officiated at our MCC wedding, her partner was one of our witnesses, and her daughter sang for us. Whenever I go to the USA, I spend time with her and her family. I told her once that I had described her as ‘my MCC mom’. She was quite pleased about that. She is the only person outside my actual family who gets to call me by my family name, without being given a death stare. I am glad to say that she is home and recovering, but it has been a difficult week. I think of my friend and her family as my ‘MCC family’. I am home in their house. I know where stuff goes in the kitchen cupboards. I walk the dog and do chores around the place when I go to stay. I can wear my pyjamas in the daytime and raid the fridge whenever I want. It is a good and safe place for me to be.
 
The word ‘family’ can be a difficult word for some folk. It may not be a safe or welcoming place. We may have been hurt or rejected by people in our family. We may simply just not like them or have much in common. LGBTQ people have always been very good at creating ‘framilies’ – friends who take the place of our families because we are not accepted or can’t be ourselves with them. People who come from different cultural backgrounds from the place that they live in often do this too. Sometimes, we may feel closer to these ‘framilies’, than to the people we grew up with. Many people describe Northern Lights MCC as their church family. It is a place where people feel loved, accepted and at home.
 
One of the wonderful things that has happened for LGBTQ people is that we can more easily become parents and make our own families. It is a great delight to welcome all our rainbow families to our monthly Family Service. This service is open to our whole church faith family. It is really good when people from the Sunday evening service worship at the Family Service too. It means that the children recognise and know faces when they worship with us at one of our All Age church services (the next All Age Service will be Easter Sunday).  There are adopted children within my own family and it is wonderful to see how LGBTQ couples are blessing and being blessed by children who need to find their ‘forever family’. These children are loved and cherished, and flourish in the love of their parents and extended family. This week I invite you to think about who you think of as ‘family’ and thank God for them.

God bless
 
Cecilia

What is in a name? Do you like your own name? I have always found my name to be a mixed blessing. I love that ‘Cecilia Eggleston’ is a very uncommon name. If I ever meet another Cecilia, we are both generally very excited about it, because it is so rare to find another one. On the other hand, I spend a lot of time having to spell my name out loud and find myself correcting the spelling or mispronunciation. Calling me ‘Celia’ is, by and large, a kneecapping offense. (joke everyone).  Then of course, there is the irritation of a new cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic track being made and a whole new generation of individuals singing to me, like I have never heard it before. For me, my name is important, therefore I try and pay attention to the names of others and what they mean to them. Some in our congregation have chosen a new name beyond the one they were given. I think this must such an exciting moment – to find just the right name for the person that you are. It is always a joy to celebrate naming ceremonies for these individuals and for children, as well as the more traditional baptism service, where a child’s name is formally given.
 
As well as our formal name, we may be called a different name by family members, friends, work colleagues. We may have nicknames given in jest, or sadly sometimes rather cruelly. Our worship theme this month – ‘Moments of Truth’ explores the many aspects or names of Jesus. We often use different names for God the Creator and the Holy Spirit in our worship too. We experience the Divine in so many different ways. It is not surprising that we, and those who wrote the scriptures, have so many names for God.
 
I love the image that we are using for ‘Moments of Truth’ because it suggests that ‘glimpsing’ that we have of God, Jesus, Spirit, just as we can glimpse the sun through the tree branches in the photo. We don’t always experience all of the Sacred, just a hint of what is there. The image also sets the experience of the Divine in a place. Often when people are telling me about a significant spiritual moment, they will say ‘I know exactly where I was’ or ‘I can picture it now’.  A tradition within the Old Testament is to name places when there has been an encounter with God. For example, Jacob names the place where he has wrestled with God, or an angel. He calls it ‘Peniel’, meaning’ face of God’ (Genesis 32:22 – 31). Perhaps we could try our own naming of places, just as our faith ancestors did. What would be the significant places in your faith journey and what name would you give them?
 
God bless
 
Cecilia

Yesterday I was interviewed for a project called ‘Christian Voices Coming Out’ organised by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) to celebrate the organisation’s 40th anniversary. Sound clips from interviews of several LGBT Christians will form an exhibition which will be launched on 3rd February in London as part of LGBT History Month. On 6th February, I will be speaking at the Two:23 Network gathering in London – Christians connected by LGBT issues. This event is also being linked with LGBT History Month and I will be sharing my own life story. In my head, my talk is called “Old Dyke’s Tales”. I have realised, with some mirth, that I have become what Quentin Crisp would describe as a ‘stately homo’. I have become the keeper and guardian of our past and am asked what I have learned that may be useful for our future.
 
We live in interesting times. 38 Primates (leaders) of the Anglican Communion from many different countries are currently meeting in Canterbury to see if they can come to a place of common understanding around the issue of homosexuality. Some of these leaders come from countries where the state actively upholds and encourages the persecution of LGBT people. The Dean of Newcastle Cathedral is one of a hundred leading Anglicans calling on the Primates to issue an apology for the way that the Church has treated LGBT people. The film ‘The Danish Girl’ is a story of transition and in the running for an Oscar.  The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee has produced a report today on Transgender Equality, which paints a pretty bleak picture of the current experiences of transgender people in the UK. Us queer folk are all over the news at the moment.
 
So much has changed for the better – equal marriage, more protection under the law, the right to adopt children and, in many societies and Christian churches, a greater acceptance and understanding about LGBT issues. These changes are remarkable and have happened within my lifetime.  We need to use our position of relative privilege to fight for those who still struggle. We need to continue to educate ourselves about the lives of others, to understand what difficulties they face and learn how we might support each other. We worship a God who created all things. It seems a bit mundane for such an awesome God to have created only two genders and only one way of enjoying sex!  The queer world is changing rapidly. ‘Pansexual’, ‘gender fluid’ and other terms are realities that I am trying to get my head around, so that I can fully celebrate the lives of those around me. May you be blessed in living out the fullness of who you are this week.

God bless
 
Cecilia

Here we are, stepping into a new year, with all its blessings and challenges. It lies ahead of us, like a giant landscape. There are landmarks that we recognise – birthdays, anniversaries, special events and seasons in the church calendar. Perhaps there are already things that we are looking forward to, like holidays, the birth of a child or completing a course of studies. Maybe there are dates that we are dreading – hospital visits or exams or the first birthday without someone important to us being there. Between the high mountains and the deep valleys of our lives are those ‘every day’ days. We do what we always do. Nothing terrible happens. Nothing astounding happens. We toddle into the next ‘every day’ day and our life continues in a steady, perhaps even dull, rhythm.
 
My brother has just moved to Cornwall. He is exploring his new environment and sends me photos – they have much better weather down there! One photo includes a spot where he says ‘I come here once a week, to count my blessings. This week I had 14. It is interesting how they mount up.’ My brother has an artist’s eye, and he notices tiny details. He browses for hours in charity shops and finds all sorts of wonderful, eccentric books and curious items. I do not have the patience for browsing and am always fascinated by his finds when I go to visit him. He delights in the small splendid things of life and his home is full of colour and interest.
 
Some of us might use our regular quiet time or our time in church on a Sunday to count our blessings. More often than not though, I find myself bending God’s ear about something, rather than taking time to be grateful for what and who there is in my life. What I am learning from my brother’s photo sharing is just how much there is to appreciate, even on ‘every day’ days, if only I am prepared to stop long enough to absorb what is around me. I read about one woman who took a photo of something on every day of the year and then got her snaps made into a book. What a wonderful way of capturing a whole year of your life. I wonder how it might be to simply get a jar and put a small pebble or a bit of sea glass in it every time I counted a blessing. How might it encourage and strengthen me to see all the different colours and shapes filling the jar as the year went by? Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if we each carried around a few small buttons or shiny pennies in our pocket and gave one to anyone who was a blessing to us in our day? And what would happen if we invited that person to do the same to the next person who was a blessing to them? Whatever 2016 holds, there will be blessings in it, even in the valleys, even in the ‘every day’ days. We just need to be willing to take time to count them.

God bless
​
Cecilia