Category Archives: Personal Stories

Queer More Than Memory (or, the closets made from the words we didn’t yet have)

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

This post is a companion piece to a post I wrote in February 2015, “A Conversation Begins with a Lie…” Like a lot of moments in my life, I recently realized something important while listening to the Indigo Girls. Carri … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Personal Stories, Sexuality | Tagged Aging, Be More Gay, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Delight, Free, Freedom, Gay, Genderqueer, Growing Older, Indigo Girls, LGBTQ, Memory, Middle Aged, Monogamy, Non-Binary, Nostalgia, Poly, Polyamorous, Power, Queer, Queer Joy, Queerness, Sexualities, Sexuality | Leave a comment

Gay Enough

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

My partner Carri and I were pretty early in our relationship when we started to wonder if we were “gay enough.” It wasn’t a new question for me; as a bi-identified person, more than a few lesbians have over the … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories, Sexuality | Tagged Acceptance, Beloved, Bisexuality, Community, Enough, Friendship, Gay, Genderqueer, identity, Lesbians, LGBTQ, Love, Queer, Sexual orientation, Sexuality, transgender | 1 Comment

Be More Gay

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

After my last post, I kept thinking about how to take these ideas and invite in a collective conversation, as well as a more intentional strategic response. The conversation part that I’m thinking about is a kind of playful response … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories, Sexuality | Tagged Church, Community, Faith, Gay, gender, Genderqueer, LGBTQ, Love, Non-Binary, Pride, Queer, trans, transgender | Leave a comment

Now is not a time for passing

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

With every new headline or “debate” about the latest wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, I hear Audre Lorde: “My silence had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” In Florida, the literal intent of the law is silencing- to … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories | Tagged Audre Lorde, Cis, Freedom, gender, Genderqueer, LGBTQ, Liberation, Non-Binary, Passing, Queer, Queerness, Straight, TDOV, trans, TransDayofVisibility, transgender, Visibility | Leave a comment

A different survival

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

Last week, Gracie, who is in 8th grade, called me from school, crying. Their class had just watched the videos from 9/11, videos that included a lot of the live footage, and the photographs that came out in the days … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories | Tagged adrienne maree brown, children, Climate Justice, Collective Action, Community, depth, Grief, Joanna Macy, Justice, Pain, Struggle, Survival, Youth | Leave a comment

Shallots, a Sabbatical Story

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

At a certain point in the summer, I realized that I’d peeled, and sliced, and cooked up more shallots in the past few months than I’d probably cooked in my whole life. Shallots are, I decided, one funny but true … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Personal Stories | Tagged Cooking, Family, Food, Humanity, Love, Resistance, Sabbath, Sabbatical, Slow, Time | 1 Comment

Telling the Stories of Sabbatical

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

I’m nearing the end of my nearly-15 week sabbatical. My first, after 7 years serving Foothills through major transitions, occasional upheaval, a big surge in (numerical, organizational, spiritual) growth, and the election of 2016 (aka liberal existenstial crisis). All of … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Personal Stories | Tagged Fun, Joy, play, Sabbath, Sabbatical, Stories, Story, Time | Leave a comment

Progressive Christians Ruined Me (Or, Everything Changes When You Know Their Name)

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

All I could think, as I headed into my second day of the machine of Rethink Leadership and the Orange Conference (a mostly-evangelical Christian leaders gathering) was: Progressive Christians have ruined me. Before seminary and my classmates – those brave … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories, Philosophy of Church | Tagged Christianity, Christians, Colleagues, Evangelical, Interfaith, Jesus, Justice, Ministry, Orange, Religion, Religious Injury, Youth | 4 Comments

Sundays

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

Sometimes, on Sunday evenings, I feel in my body, the sense memory from my senior year of high school of the hours after a swim meet, or a tennis match, or a calculus test. Growing up these were the markers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Personal Stories, Philosophy of Church | Tagged Gratitude, Sermons, Sunday, Worship, Writing | Leave a comment

How It Might Have Gone (My Universalist Dream Ballet Version of the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Hearings)

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Rev. Gretchen Haley

I was imagining all day yesterday how it might have gone. I keep thinking of it like my Universalist-Dream-Ballet version of the horrifying/captivating Senate Hearings. That is, a version of events fueled by my most idealistic notions of redemption and reconciliation. And, … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Reflections, Justice, Personal Stories, Sexuality, Theology | Tagged #MeToo, Forgiveness, Healing, Judaism, Reconciliation, Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence, Sexuality, Teshuvah, Wholeness, Yom Kippur | 2 Comments

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