The day that I met my husband Eric Stenshoel was the luckiest day of my life. At that point, in February 1992, it had been two and a half years since my life partner of 16 years, Louis Fulgoni, had died of AIDS, and I was beginning to despair of ever finding a lifemate again.
Eric’s first partner Bill Prosser had died only three months before we met, but because Eric had done a better job of preparing for Bill’s death than I had done with Louis, he was ready for a new relationship. If I had met Eric three months after Louis died, when I was just at the beginning of a year of deep and self-destructive grief, I doubt that we would have clicked so quickly.
A few weeks after we began our relationship, I found myself at Saint Peter’s for a mass and performance by the choir. Not being a church-goer, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. This very first time I showed up, two warm and welcoming people engaged me in conversation after mass: Pastors John Gensel and John Damm.
The second or third time I came to Saint Peter’s was Good Friday. I was unable to resist when Eric told me the Saint Matthew Passion was to be done with orchestra. This was a work I already knew well from recordings – although it took a few years to get used to hearing it in English – and the opening chords of the beginning chorale always bring tears to my eyes, even before the double choirs begin to sing. You could say that what hooked me on St. Peter’s was the music.
As a child I was pretty much spared exposure to religion. Neither of my parents were religious until later in life. For a few years when I was in elementary school we lived next door to my grandmother, who would come over Sunday morning and ask, “Oh, boys, which one of you wants to go to church with me?” My two younger brothers and I would run and hide, but ever so often one of us would have to endure Sunday school, then a service.
Not to mention surviving the ride to and from church with my grandmother driving my uncle’s car. Looking back, I am amazed that my parents allowed this. Years later I learned that Gran never had a driver’s license. She grew up on a wheat farm in west Texas, and drove a car like a wagon. I remember her coming to a stop sign and pulling back on the steering wheel while telling the car, “Whoa!” Fortunately she also used the brake.
This was the Church of Christ (and I do not mean UCC) and it was the late 1940s and early 1950s. I once asked why the singing was a cappella, when our Baptist friends had an organ. The answer was that the Bible said “Lift up your voices and sing.” When I was 11 years old my father went back into the U.S. Army and we moved away, sparing me from further exposure to this kind of religion. I suspect that this change helped make my coming to terms with my sexuality a lot easier.
I knew that I was gay at an early age, probably when I was about nine years old. I did not know what it meant, but I knew it was not anything you shared with anyone other than your most trusted contemporaries. In the fifth grade I had three best friends among the boys, two of them gay like me, and we all knew it and talked about it, to the extent that we understood it, meaning we mostly talked about our schoolboy infatuations. The fourth (straight) member of our little circle might have felt like that fish out of water, but he seemed comfortable with the three of us.
Funny thing, even back then some of our butch classmates knew that we were queer {the term “gay” was not yet in general use) and ragged us about it. I am talking about 1950 here. Years later, when I was in my twenties, I learned that a fifth-grade classmate, a graceful, muscular jock on whom I had a huge crush, had left his wife and child and was living with his male lover.
It has now been 18 years that I have been coming to Saint Peter’s. Despite my uncertainties about religion, the people of Saint Peter’s have become family. I have come to admire and rely on the leadership of Pastor Derr on moral issues. Visible Witness (I prefer to call it the Queer Caucus) is a testament to Mandy’s vision and leadership. The first meeting of this group last fall was powerful and moving. As participants described their bitter childhood – and adult – experiences of rejection by their religious leaders and families, I realized how lucky my escape from fundamentalist religion had been. No one told me when I was growing up that I was going to hell.
Saint Peter’s feels like home. It is gratifying to be part of a community that does so much good, where people take seriously the charge to love – and help – your neighbor.
Recently I had an exchange with a parish member, who commented that I had been coming around more often. I replied that I felt comfortable at Saint Peter’s but sometimes felt odd, because I could not exactly say I am a believer. He looked at me, and after a pause said, “Everyone has doubts.”
So the journey continues.
-Michael McKee
