Appreciating Tolerance!

“Appreciating Tolerance!” — also published in Pilgrim Place NEWS, July-August 2018

A recent article I wrote for the NEWS elicited much response. Most of it was what I had hoped for — appreciation of definitions of terms that sometimes haunt and trouble us in our efforts to be tolerant of one another and welcoming of diversity and inclusion. Some reactions were unexpectedly strong and may indicate that our discussion has only just begun.

Here I would like to connect racial tolerance and acceptance with other “intersectional” aspects which come into play in all of our self-images, our prejudices, and our distancing ourselves from people who seem “other” to us or threaten to make us appear as “other” in our larger social context. The multi-layered conversation enabled by the Pilgrim Place Diversity Study Group and its “Circle of Chairs” in conjunction with NAACP and NCNW has helped me bring my thoughts to expression.

Many of us have irrational fears of ostracism or mortal embarrassment. These may be based on one’s own experiences or witnessing others’ embarrassments. Most who have served in preaching roles before congregations have been anxious that our message would be misunderstood or rejected altogether. Perhaps you have had that nightmare of going into pulpit or classroom and realizing you had forgotten your manuscript or lost that clever thought you had so carefully honed and so keenly wanted to share. Sometimes we imagine ourselves appearing absent significant pieces of clothing!

Growing up as a closeted gay, but openly “white” boy in a mostly monolithic WASP and “heterosexist” culture, I may well have different thoughts on tolerance, inclusion, exclusion, fear of discovery or about suddenly standing out in a hostile crowd facing micro-aggressions than those of my “pinko-gray” straight siblings. “Queer” was a strongly exclusionary word when I was young, now reclaimed for self-description, like “Methodist”! My male compatriots — gay and straight alike of whatever skin-tone— can imagine possible pubescent sources of embarrassment in stimulating contexts.

I did not come out as a gay man until after my 70th birthday. Fortunately, my wife of nearly 50 years was relieved that this particular peculiarity of our lives could now be public, addressed and discussed. The cost to each of us over the decades has been high. I am grateful that our children and my only sibling were able to deal with the revelation with equanimity. (The current generation may have some trouble realizing what all the uproar may have once been about — but the current political scene reminds us faintly.) 

As a result of my sexual orientation and my response to the call to be a minister of the gospel, I became an advocate for tolerance for those who were perceived as different and outcast, often at the risk of having to reveal my own self in the process. Out of this personal emotional Gestalt I have always sought to be sensitive to attitudes that can exclude others (including, admittedly, my own) and have sought to miss no opportunity to lift up the high value of tolerance, inclusion and diversity in my preaching and in my active involvement with racial minorities, refugees and migrants, women who continue to suffer under the assumption that men have prior right to speak and / or the last word, and other undervalued and underserved persons — while asking forgiveness from such for my own perceived intolerance.

As I give thanks for tolerance, I want also to reject indifference. Not caring one way or another about others is not the needed component of active, loving tolerance, empathy and compassion which I seek. I offer my hope always that assertions I make which are perceived as controversial may serve not to squelch conversation but to help us grow in our toleration for different points of view without any sense of indifference toward those who hold them.