BONUS BLOG: The Words in The Disaffiliation List

Hannah Adair Bonner is a colleague who was an online friend for years before it was my joy to meet her in person and chat with her at GC19. I follow her writings and cheered when I saw her name among the Disciplines 2023 authors’ list. She says much and says it well in this piece from earlier this week —

To my beloveds in Oriole, Maryland… I scanned the disaffiliation list for the Peninsula Delaware Annual Conference with no expectation that I would see you represented there. The reason being that I’ve never fallen out of love with you. You, my first church, my first love. You loved me so deeply, and I you, that It did not feel within the realm of possibility that this was how you felt about pastors like me… people who dare to love ourselves just as we are.

I knew you as a church that taught me how to move with authority and grace. A church that loved me, and celebrated my gifts, saying I could be the next Joshua Thomas – the one to bring the people of the islands together. I knew you to be a church that could appreciate a Queer pastor and see their call, even if you didn’t yet see my wholeness.

Yet, there were the words in the list of disaffiliations:

St. Peter’s UMC, Oriole, MD

I thought of our beloved Buster, and all those days driving up to Johns Hopkins to be with him. I thought of the fresh oysters he brought me – and how you cooked them up for me single fried, because that is how you tell someone you love them. I see those flowers stuck in the chicken wire cross that make your current Easter photos look the same as they did 14 years ago. I think fondly of taking my turn at the Blessing of the Fleet, and seeing the tears rolling down the faces of tough crabbers as they shared poems and songs in honor of those they’d lost to the storms of the Bay. I know the tenderness behind even the most toughened among you.

Yet there the words were: St. Peter’s UMC, Oriole, MD

I knew you to be a church who loved the gay people within the larger circle, even if you didn’t acknowledge that part of who they were. It gave me a kind of hope. A sense that you would not want to harm them in this way, not want to make them feel God loved them any less, not want to send them this kind of message.

Yet there the words were: St. Peter’s UMC, Oriole, MD

I remembered our other talks as well… about how White children could go to a certain bus stop so that they would not have to go to the school with the Black children. About how that great uncle was involved in the last lynching in Princess Anne… yet, you kept coming back each Sunday, and listening to me preach about racial justice, and even wanted me to stay. You wanted to grow, and do good in the world.

Yet there the words were: St. Peter’s UMC, Oriole, MD

I looked up the church and saw that the attendance was half what it was when we were together, and I wondered who has passed on and who has stopped coming. I tell myself maybe it wasn’t him… not her… not them that cast a vote. Maybe it wasn’t those that cooked me dinner, and told me jokes, that cast a vote to cut themselves off because people like me exist.

Yet there the words were: St. Peter’s UMC, Oriole, MD

I looked up who your pastor is now. A former member from the other church in that charge, who found colleague a more comfortable relationship to have with me than pastor, and entered the cloth himself during my tenure as pastor of the charge. I look at who else is leaving, and I see that there must be a significant amount of peer pressure, there in that arm of land reaching from Princess Anne out towards Deal Island.

For those that celebrate in this parting of ways, I release you willingly, but not without grief. I hope you will remember the humanity of the people affected. I hope you will remember that it isn’t “Queer people” – it’s me. Hannah. Hannah, who knows that Bip’s Garage is the place to get the scoop on what’s going on around town. Hannah, who knows that the best way to get someone to their dialysis when the marsh floods is on a school bus, because the wheels are higher than the water. Hannah, who knows that single-fried is your love language because it takes extra time and skill… because it isn’t easy, and you’re not scared to do things that are hard… I hope some of you are doing the hard thing of saying that people like me matter. Regardless, here I am, Hannah, who never stopped loving you, and loves you even still.

I feel a certain sense of sadness for those I know must feel left behind by your decision, so to those among you that feel this grief: please know and remember that you will always have a home in the The United Methodist Church… even if the only one you can find is in my heart.