“Queers say ‘huh.’” I could barely hear him.

“Huh?”

“Ha! Jimmy’s a queer!”

Que the laughter. He got me. My face grew hot and red, and the reddening face served as a “get louder” prompt to the others. I was in my early teens, and the recipient of the worst insult of all. That’s where I started.

Well, that’s where I started if you don’t count childhood innocence when I thought that we actually believed Jesus loves all the children of the world.

Fast forward a few years. I’m a freshman at a small Christian college in western North Carolina. One of my classmates is John.

I was an administration favorite. An example of what the school was there for. I had been what was later called “at risk.” An awful student with an acute authority problem. I made a U turn the first month of first semester, and declared for team Jesus. I started making good grades, was a regular at Bible study, and was occasionally asked to travel with the school’s chorus to churches around Tennessee and the Carolinas in order to give my testimony.

The administration didn’t know what to do with John. He was not an administration favorite, and certainly not asked to travel with the chorus. Fluffy shirts, hot pants, prissy as prissy gets. Truth is, I kinda admired his willingness to fly his flag in such an environment.

John heard that I was a Christian, something of leader on the God squad, and he asked me if we could talk. I figured that’s what Christians did, so we met one evening in a room in the library.

I don’t remember that conversation verbatim, but pretty quickly John starting weeping. He said he wished he was like me, said he was sure God hated him, said he would give anything to change, and asked me to pray for him. My heart broke for him. I told him I was convinced God loved him. That was good but, I’m afraid that I probably also threw in that maybe should try a little harder if he really wanted to change. It was 1971. I was eighteen. A rookie.

A couple nights later I was walking past John’s room in our dorm, and I saw that someone, using shaving cream, had drawn a big heart with “John loves Larry” in the middle on John’s door. I didn’t think it was funny, but I did think it wasn’t my business either, so I kept walking. Only for a few steps. Then I remembered John’s tears and desperate cries.

I went to the janitor’s closet, filled a bucket with water, got a mop, and went back to wash the shaving cream off the door before John saw it.

Three comedians came out of the room across the hall. They asked me what I was doing and I told them. They told me to leave it there, and implied something of a threat. I turned toward them, told them it wasn’t funny, and it was coming off.

They must have sensed that the Spirit’s fruit of gentleness hadn’t firmly taken root in my heart yet, so after calling me a “queer lover,” they went back to their room. I remember thinking that attempted slur didn’t hurt a bit. It actually felt good. I think I was feeling something like a born again version of “you bet your ass I am.”

John never knew about the shaving cream. He didn’t come back for spring semester, and the rumors as to why weren’t good. I don’t know what became of him.

Fast forward a few years. It’s the mid eighties, and I am the associate minister for a church in small-town South Carolina. One day the phone rings.

The voice on the other end sounded afraid, and was choked with tears. He got out that he was dying from AIDS and wanted to receive communion. Oddly enough, his name was John too.

John was about my age and over the next few months we became friends. I met his partner who was loving and faithful till the end. I almost overcame my fear of touching him. And we did communion.

It was just him and me, per his request. He was afraid if he came to a regular worship service it would make his father the object of small-town drama, and John’s partner wasn’t big on Christianity, so the two of us met in the sanctuary on a weekday afternoon.

I pulled out all the stops. I put on my pulpit robe, used the acolyte’s lighter to light the candles, and we did high church liturgy. Afterward, we sat in the front pew and talked theology, but not Christology eschatology, or about the Trinity. We talked about life with Christ, being loved, forgiveness, and hope.

He wanted to share what he believed, and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I wish I had recorded that conversation. It was perfect. John believed he was loved, and that somehow he would be welcomed home. When he asked me if I thought what he believed was Christian, I answered, “If that ain’t Christian, there’s no such thing.”

John died. I believe with all my heart he was welcomed home. His last few months were a gift to me.

Which brings us to these days. Over the years, it’s my hope that I’ve grown into the role of ally. I know I have people in my life that represent every letter in the LGBTQ community that make my heart grin when I think about them. And, let me be crystal clear, while not all my queer friends and family identify as Christian, many of them do, and they have blessed me, inspired me, and helped me to love more dearly.

I started this little written journey with “queers say, ‘huh.’” I think that word was on my mind because the other night I went to a Christian, queer, country, folk, rock concert at a nearby church. It was headlined by Flamy Grant and Spencer LaJoye. Check them out. I was blessed, inspired, and experienced love a little more dearly.

On the way home I wondered what would make someone that had been told all their life that they weren’t quite in God’s circle keep writing and singing songs of love.

I’m thinking it must be something real, something transformative, something I think we could all use a little more of.

Huh?