Sean Glenn: My Meditation for World AIDS Day

Although I have often commented on the subtle nuances of World AIDS Day's placement in close proximity to the first Sunday in Advent, this year I was confronted––perhaps more than ever––by the jarring and peculiar ways that both of these days resonate with and read each other.

PHOTO CREDIT: Christian Paolino
All rights reserved. Used with permission.

A strange and marvelous thing happened to me yesterday morning. While singing the final hymn for the Eucharist at Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass.  ("Lo! he comes with clouds descending"), these peculiarities caught me off-guard. While I always appreciate the ways a sophisticated Advent hymn will prefigure the crucifixion and resurrection, I had seldom read this kind of imagery in the context of my own status as an HIV-positive person. The incarnational reality of my life with HIV––a new life-long embodied Advent of patient waiting and longing for the redemptive release of a cure or, at the very least, the dismantling of unjust and uninformed social stigma––washed over me in waves as verse three began:

"Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears..."

Those dear tokens––those wounds inflicted by a brutal imperial hegemony––remain a core feature of the Body of Christ, in both his resurrected visage, as well as us, his Body in the world.

Yet despite my own on-going sense of daily death and resurrection, I still find myself (as I am sure do so many others) walking the path of (im-)patient expectation. Much in the same way Jesus' own wounds reflect a certain degree of choice, so too I begin to feel the sense that the wounds we experience as HIV-positive people also reflect a degree of choice. This is, by no means, an indictment of the manner by which we become HIV-positive; the wound there is in no way something self-inflicted. Rather, at least in my own meditation on the matter, the "dear tokens" which confront me daily are a matter of my own choice around disclosure. I am wounded no matter my choice: I can hide, attempt to pass through the world untouched by this peculiar bodily companion, or I can do what I have done and give the thing a face in the world. If I hide, I am crushed by the closet of shame and fear. If I disclose, I am rendered and read as many things, none of which I truly believe I am: a victim, one inflicted, something to be pitied, a body to be feared and avoided, the manifestation of one of our epoch's great and terrible specters, dirty.

We are none of these things, though. We walk our path of living Advent, but we do so knowing that "what God has made clean, [no one can] call dirty."

To the sero-negative, ponder this during Advent. Be a light for those you know (or may not know) are sero-positive. Lay down the banner of fear.

To my fellow sero-positive, resist the labels that others might want to apply to us. Wear these wounds with pride, knowing that God has transformed them––just as peculiarly as on Easter––and, as a result has transformed us by them and through them. Show your pierced hands and open sides to the world; give birth to a new reality.

Amen.

Sean Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Sean Glenn: HIV and Undetectable Transmission

During a therapy session a few weeks ago, my behavioral health provider asked me a question, "Why do you remain compliant?" (That is to say, "why are you taking your anti-retroviral medications?") To my surprise, my answer left him at a loss for words. After considering every possible vantage, I responded, "I take my medication for the sake of and as an act of service to the community around me."

I could discern the look of perplexity on his face at once. "Really?" he asked, "You don’t take it because of the health benefits and the guarantee of a greater longevity of life? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a patient respond that way."

"No," I responded, "because none of that is really up to me. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow; there are an innumerable myriad of ways that I could die unprepared, and a good 99% of them have nothing to do with the fact that I’m HIV-positive. I give my mortality up to God — we were all ordained to return to the dust one day. I just don’t know when. As such, I think it is more important for me to take my medication to ensure that no one around me contracts the virus from me. It’s the small role I can perform in an effort to eradicate the virus. Nothing would thrill me more at the end of my life than to know that this thing dies with me. That, I guess, is why I work to remain undetectable."

Of course, the virus will likely not die with my passing body, but we are getting closer to such a reality.

As Arthur Campbell Aigner’s eschatological hymn declares, "God is working his purpose out as year
succeeds to year: God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near; nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea."

For those living with, and among, the reality of HIV, the qualifier "undetectable" is a step to this divine purpose.

Yet, there exists, within the LGBT community at least, a long standing suspicion of the HIV sero-marker "undetectable." Conversations with some (as well as comment threads on HIV-related articles) display, even in the face of overwhelming scientific findings, a readiness to stigmatize the sero-positive and read "undetectable" as an excuse to "behave poorly and selfishly."

The science, however, may be in and my long standing beliefs seem to hold true in the face of the empirical evidence: treatment as prevention works. In a world where abstinence education simply will not hold among many communities, and where (despite the vast accessibility of condoms) unprotected sex continues its appeal for many partners seeking such a level of intimacy, treatment as prevention is demonstrating a long-ranging efficacy for the reduction of HIV transmission rates.

A landmark Partner study, which "tracked HIV transmission risk through condomless sex [where] the
HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral medication—has so far found not even one case
of an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a partner." This is
enormous news for both the sero-positive and sero-negative communities. Although researchers fully
disclose the fact that these findings are not yet the final telos for the study of transmission, the results
so far are telling.

As I mentioned in an article a few months back (HIV and Corporate Profit: Recognizing the needs of a Community), treatment as prevention is a method of preventing HIV transmission by ensuring that those who are sero-positive are receiving regular medical care and are taking an anti-retroviral medication so that their viral load (the measurement of viral duplications per milliliter of blood) remains suppressed.

While the scientific findings regarding the efficacy of a suppressed viral load as a part of the treatment as prevention model are indeed exciting, the broad-reaching social implications are somewhat frustrating. As Lucas Grindley comments, "What many experts already know about how HIV is transmitted still holds true: [n]ew infections usually come from people who are undiagnosed, who don’t know they have the virus, and who are not on treatment."

In my own experience, the day-to-day medical realities of life with HIV are seldom what keep people
from knowing their status. While my last article focused heavily on the imperative that anti-retroviral
medication be made as readily and easily available as possible, I also posit that stigma is an enormous
roadblock in the treatment as prevention model. Treatment as prevention only works when people
are willing to know their status, without fear of the systemic, legal, and historical project of HIV
stigmatization, especially as the greater impetus toward reducing medical and scientific illiteracy is
thrust upon the shoulders of the sero-positive.

It is, to say quite simply, an exhausting reality. I can no longer count the times I, among friends,
colleagues, strangers, and prospective lovers, have had to haul out the facts about transmission rates
among those who know their status versus those who do not. I can no longer count the number of
instances wherein I have heard a young man say, "I would get tested, but I’m too scared to."

These words, "I would get tested, but I’m too scared," could very well have been on the lips of the young man from whom I contracted HIV nearly four years ago. Had he known his status and had he been on an anti-retroviral regimen, the trajectory of my own life may well have looked quite different. But systems of stigmatization stood in the way of his own self-knowledge. Indeed, these same systems often stood in the way of my own self-knowledge. This was by no means his or my fault. It is, however, the reason I refuse to hide. It is the reason that I refuse to let HIV-stigmatization go uncriticized, even if it means deeply questioning the assumptions of some in my social circles.

As a church, both denominationally and ecumenically, we are called by the wounded yet living Christ to deeply question any and all manner of stigmatization. There was a slogan often rung out in the streets of protest in the late 1980s, "Our Church Has AIDS." This is still true. As members of the Body of Christ, we share each other’s wounds, and, as such, we are called into the process of reshaping (though never actually erasing) those wounds. If we share each other’s wounds, we share each other’s stigma. We are bound in the Eucharist to Christ’s own death and resurrection, yet also are bound to each other’s wounds, stigma, death, and resurrection, here and now.

The church can, therefore, lead in the project of treatment as prevention. The realities of HIV in our own communities should be openly discussed, and education about the various ways (not just abstinence) of navigating such a world should be requisite. We can end stigma together; and, if we end stigma, we may just be able to end HIV.



Sean R. Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.


Sean Glenn is the Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts

HIV and Corporate Profit: Recognizing the needs of a Community

Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
––Matthew 14:13–21, Lection for Proper 13A [August 3, 2014]

When I first moved to Boston in September of 2011 (some nine months after my diagnosis with HIV), I was not yet on an anti-retroviral medication. To be quite candid, I was afraid to start treatment. Despite the incredible reduction of side-effects caused by anti-retroviral treatment, I was weary of the cost. Starting an HIV medication can be something of a life-long commitment; in order for it to work the most effectively, total (or near total) adherence (that is, taking the medication every day, as prescribed) is requisite. Ceasing treatment often runs the risk of viral mutation and, therefore, resistance to medications. This was a proverbial plunge for which I was not ready.

Once established with a local HIV specialist, however, a medication was prescribed to me. My previous doctor in New York City had leaned on an older model of care. His stance was to wait to begin an anti-retroviral regimen until a patient's CD4 (or T-cell) count had dropped below about 300 (a count of 200 or fewer usually indicates the on-set of AIDS). This meant that, in theory, I could have gone many, many years without beginning medication, depending on my body's ability to handle the virus. My provider in Boston, however, introduced me to the notion of "Treatment as Prevention," a now standard approach to HIV care.

Treatment as Prevention relies on the now clinically verifiable notion that, in order to slow or even prevent the spread of HIV, a patient who is sero-positive should adhere to a medication so that the patient's viral load is suppressed to undetectable levels (or, what is called "undetectable viral load"). Studies have shown that HIV-positive patients who adhere to medication and maintain an undetectable viral load are exponentially less likely to transmit the virus (one researcher has even been quoted saying that the chances are reduced to near zero percent).

With this knowledge in hand, I accepted my provider's orders and began treatment. The results were almost instantaneous: within a month my viral load was reduced from 20,000 copies per unit to completely undetectable levels. As a result, my CD4 count rose, and my last blood panel showed them hovering just over 850––a high, healthy CD4 count for anyone, positive or negative. I, like so many others, now live with the reassurance that it is almost impossible for me to transmit the virus, especially when other precautions are taken. My adherence to anti-retroviral treatment is a safe-guard to the community, as well as myself.

This was the good news. The bad news, however, revealed itself when I needed to find away to pay for treatment. When I started taking medication in October of 2011, I had to rely on student insurance. While I am now fortunate enough to have coverage through MassHealth, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts public insurance, I did not qualify for it in 2011 because the university had enrolled me with Aetna. This presented a major problem. Not only did Aetna not adequately cover my doctor visits or blood work, they maintained a $2,000 yearly cap for medications. That might sound like a reasonable cap, but a 30-day supply of Atripla (the anti-retroviral medication prescribed to me) costs just over $2,000.

I'll repeat that: a 30-day supply of Atripla costs just over $2,000. I was (and continue to be) fortunate enough to live in an area of the U.S. where there are many resources for someone living with HIV. Although it was, by no means, an easy feat to get my medication covered during the first year, thanks to the incredible medical social workers in Boston I now have full coverage. This, however, is not the case universally, both at home and abroad. Treatment can be hard to come by, and this often prevents those living with HIV from receiving adequate access to medicine--medicine which not only allows patient to live longer, but also prevents the spread of HIV.

We will never live in a post-HIV/AIDS epoch unless this changes. Until there is a vaccine or a cure, Treatment as Prevention is the only sustainable model that benefits both the HIV-positive and HIV-negative communities. At a certain point, we have to ask ourselves (especially as communities of faith) how much longer we can allow the corporate profit made off of those living with HIV to outweigh the imperative that anti-retroviral therapy be made readily and affordably available to all, for the sake of all. Medications do not simply save individual lives; they save communities.

"Loaves and Fishes Mosaic"
PHOTO CREDIT: James Emery
Used under Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved

The Gospel pericope cited above serves as a cornerstone of this imperative. In this enacted parable (the historicity of which is not my purpose here), Jesus gives his disciples a command –– he gives us a command: "You go and feed them." The responsibility here is not Jesus’; it is ours. The necessary resources are already abundant by God's good grace, and we simply have to recognize that. But, in recognizing this abundance, we are also forced to ask where this abundance frequently ends up. Does it end up serving the good of the community, or does it end up in the hands of a few? The responsibility is ours.

Let's take Jesus at his word in this parable: "You go and feed them."

Sean R. Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Toward a Hermeneutic of Abundance: A queer response to discourses of parochial scarcity in the Episcopal Church

Eastertide in the Western Church has come and gone. The shift of liturgical season seemed remarkably quick this year, as each Eastertide seems to get shorter and shorter as the years go by.  My liturgical plate during Holy Week was unusually full this year, as was requisite of my duties at Christ Church in Cambridge, MA, and each liturgy leading-up-to and during the Triduum seemed to guide me through the mysteries of our faith in a new way. And here we stand, on the other side of the cross—liturgically, at least.

Yet, I have a secret to share with you: I find myself still standing in that one place we live our entire lives of Christians—within the unsettled fear and doubt of Holy Saturday—and for reasons that may not seem typically discernable. 

Detail of "Church for Sale" by Ed Kohler
Some Rights Reserved. Used under Creative Commons License

This afternoon after church I had the pleasure of serving on an inquirer’s discernment committee under the auspices of the Diocese of Connecticut. Today was our final meeting, so we addressed issues I have, in my own thinking, ignored or tried to ignore; issues that diocesan discernment materials make quite plain, namely the future of the Episcopal Church. I was confronted, due to the language of the diocesan materials, with the reality that the church is getting ready for a number of involuntary changes, the shapes of which are not yet apparent. As numbers seem to dwindle in certain parts of various Provinces, fundamental questions are being asked about what it means to "do" church, and what that could look like in an era that may have significantly fewer parishes. 

Now, I am in no way attempting to tout the falling numbers line that many critics of the Episcopal Church seem to relish. I don’t actually know what these numbers look like, so I am unwilling to make predictions about the future of our tradition. Diocesan discernment materials, however, both in my own diocese and elsewhere, make it clear that the extant parish model is causing significant doubts within diocesan leadership, doubts that are, therefore, all over the ethos of such discernment materials. 

While the discussion we had on this issue was fruitful, prayerful, and eye-opening, the only thought ringing through my mind as I left was "you poor walking anachronism; why couldn’t I have been born a decade earlier?"

The discussion unsettled me in that it asked all of us to asses our vocational goals, and it forced me to really think about what those goals might look like. Yet, not only did our conversation cause me deep distress about the future of my ecclesial vocations—as both a musician and one considering ordination—it struck me in a such a manner so as to remind me of the fears I encountered as I came of age during the recent economic crisis. 

The moment I left home and began my undergraduate studies, the economic situation took its tragic downward spin. Everywhere I looked, whether within the academy, the musical community, or as I searched for part-time work, the ethos was the same, saturated by a gloomy hermeneutic of scarcity. I must admit, even within my own place of privilege as a white male student, this gloom wounded me terribly; to this day I continue to suffer moments of the same absolute terror I experienced nine years ago. This terror has come to figuratively re-closet me—it forces me to keep my hopes and dreams held close, though without the confidence or means to pursue them, lest I lose them forever in the murky seas of scarcity. 

Now, after having discovered something precious and, dare I say, fragile, I fear for its continued existence. When I was seventeen I fell in love with the idea of the liturgy; when I was twenty I began to practice it as a musician at the Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle—it was then that I fell in love with the liturgy itself. It was the liturgy, particularly manifest in celebrations of the Eucharist (celebrations of total abundance in the midst of scarcity) that made Christian theology begin to make sense. The life of the liturgical church transformed Christianity (which I had for years disliked just short of total abhorrence) into a real, truthful, salvific orientation. In that space, in that community, both sonically, physically, and cross-temporally, the Incarnation became something I sought to see in the world around me. Without the liturgy, in liturgical space, and within a tradition that called me into its vast historicity and kaironic community, it becomes more difficult to seek the face of the Risen Lord in the world outside that space. Its very queerness set it apart from everything else in the world around me, and it provided an antithesis to the broader ethos of scarcity. 

While I respect and understand the need to explore what it means to "do" church without the structures we are used to, without sacred buildings, without our Anglican legacy of musical transformation, without choirs, and, dare I say, without full-time clergy (a matter to which many of the newer discernment materials point), I worry that a hermeneutic of scarcity is the only thing propelling us to navigate these ideas. I find it an incredible opportunity to think about what our baptism is really about, yet I find there the same hermeneutic of scarcity which was omnipresent when I came of age. Now, it threatens to engulf that very thing which I love the most—the one thing in the world that makes sense to me as a queer man. 

We—members of the LGBTQ body— have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice much for our place within the Church. As our stories become stronger threads in the tapestry of the Christian narrative, welcomed into the life as fully-recognized members of the Body of Christ, we need to ensure that what we're fighting for survives. We have managed to begin a re-acknowledgement of our tradition's queerness by the virtue of our presence and by the virtue of what Christianity stands for. We fought for a place to worship; now, will we let this uniquely queer space continue to exist? 

While the situation is doubtless different from diocese to diocese, we should begin to ask ourselves what the role our renewed presence within the ecclesial body might look like. While the narratives of scarcity seem to take over, we, as LGBTQ communities of faith, should steadfastly resist them, resounding the Eucharistic hermeneutic of abundance as we continue our work within and outside of the Church itself. We fought (and continue to fight) for a home that was always our home, even if not always dogmatically. Let us make sure the home for which we fought continues to stand—to ensure that our unique, queer, liturgical abundance continues to speak.

Sean R. Glenn Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

The Slaughter of our Holy Innocence: HIV Criminalization in the New Century

by Sean R. Glenn

Although, as I have indicated in previous work, I try my best not to allow my HIV positive status to define me by writing about it too frequently, I’m going to set that penchant aside for a moment. What I want to discuss right now is not an easy matter; there are no clear-cut either/or binaries here, and I worry that I’m likely to make some people uncomfortable in the language to follow. What I want to talk about is far more frightening for those living with HIV than rejection or health complications: the criminalization of HIV positive individuals, a new dimension of unjust and, frankly, scientifically illiterate HIV stigmatization. Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents—an uncomfortable occasion that marks events that may have occurred following the birth of Jesus, and, perhaps more importantly, events that continue to this day: the violence of systematic oppression, stigmatization, and our own culpability therein. To some, a discussion concerning HIV criminalization may not seem an appropriate topic for such a feast day, yet on the eve of Epiphany (and the eve of my three year anniversary) there are connections I can no longer ignore.

Despite medical advances over the past two decades, HIV positive people remain a stigmatized group that reveals serious lacunae within the confines of our language. That is to say, while conventional wisdom holds that HIV is “a gay thing,” the facts tell us that HIV confronts every single one of us: the virus is entirely unaware of the age, gender, sexual orientation, race, economic status, or religion of those it marks. That said, in the United States there are certain communities that do bear more statistical risk than others: intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men (gay, straight, or otherwise), and communities of color, particularly women thereof. Life with HIV spans many categories, revealing that clear-cut grouping of peoples and conditions doesn’t work; to address it is to declare that one must always engage in conversations about HIV carefully, and always with an eye toward the broader issues social justice that the virus thrusts before our (often unwilling and unprepared) eyes.

In the months following my diagnosis I was asked several questions by friends and family, including “are you angry at the man who gave you HIV?” and “You know you can take legal action. Are you going to press charges?” The answer to both was, and continues to be, an emphatic “no.” In a matter such as this there is no room for finger pointing—that simply distracts us from more systemic issues. I made a mistake, as did the individual who likely transmitted the virus to me.

I recently came across a lengthy article on BuzzFeed detailing the state of HIV criminalization in the United States, which focused primarily on a case of HIV criminalization in Iowa. This is just one of many such cases that have found their way across my path in recent years. According to data collected by the organization ProPublica, the last decade has seen at least 541 recorded cases “in which people were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, criminal charges for not disclosing that they were HIV-positive.” The data goes on to suggest that this number could actually be higher because in at least 35 states have laws which make it a criminal offense to expose another person to HIV; in 19 states, it is a felony. Yet, peculiarly enough, these laws can be executed and punishments proscribed even if the virus is not transmitted. Let me repeat that: these laws do not require transmission to occur. Possible exposure is enough to land an individual in prison.
I must confess, when I first learned of this, it was almost impossible to contain my rage and indignation, especially given that there are numerous other infectious conditions that are, in the age of retroviral therapy, much more deadly and far more communicable than (controlled) HIV for which no such laws exist.

This does, of course, force us to deal with issues of consent and ask the question “who bears the burden of responsibility here?” In the case of consensual sexual encounters (because, let’s face it, non-consensual sexual encounters are criminal), I would argue that, insofar as HIV transmission is concerned, the burden of responsibility is shared. Conventionally, the burden is placed squarely upon the HIV positive individual, but this, I would argue, is dangerous (and opens a complicated can of worms concerning credibility, honesty, and self-knowledge). Now, before the readership erupts in shocked dismay, let me qualify this by saying that, under the best of circumstances, I believe that an HIV positive individual should always disclose their status. I always make a point to do so because only in my silence does the virus win. However, the reality of social stigmatization and stratification complicates this wildly. As a result, it is also my stance that an HIV negative individual should always protect themselves; always. Always use protection and, as terrible as this might sound, never presume a person to be HIV negative—that person might not know their status. This also means, however, that protection does not include avoiding HIV positive people. I have found in the past that the best protection has been to openly engage with HIV positive individuals. I have always felt safer with HIV positive people who have openly disclosed their status to me. Honest disclosure means several things:

1) You can be sure of this person’s status; there is no doubt.

2) You can also likely be sure that this person, having disclosed, is receiving treatment and is taking medication to suppress their viral load, making it significantly more difficult to transmit the virus. If someone has recently contracted the virus and does not know it, presuming the safety of a previous negative HIV test, the chances of transmission are significantly higher.

3) You can also assume that this person who has disclosed has likely undergone a complicated internal dialogue about the consequences of their honesty. This is not something to take for granted, and this is where I feel the greatest danger of HIV criminalization laws lies: if people do not feel safe enough to disclose their status, they won’t. If the fear of being stigmatized by a systematically prejudiced legal system aligned with conventional societal ignorance is present, it is safer to either claim ignorance of one’s status or, more dangerously, avoid getting tested for HIV altogether.
This is a sure recipe for the continued presence of HIV for generations to come, and it is a guarantee that unjust stigmatization will win. If people are afraid to get tested—afraid to know about what might be happening within their bodies—then we can be sure that infections rates will climb. As I have often said, “HIV is something one rarely gets from someone who knows they are positive.” If people know they are positive, treatment is sought; if treatment is sought, the risk of transmission is significantly reduced.

If we cannot openly disclose, discuss, and feel safe about our HIV statuses, we let the virus, and the stigma surrounding it, win. Our innocence is accordingly slaughtered and, as a result, HIV won’t go away.

HIV wins only when HIV stigmatization wins.  

Sean R. Glenn is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music. He holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Reflections at the Dawn of Advent: World AIDS Day 2013

by Sean R. Glenn, Integrity blogger

Sean R. Glenn

I make it a point to try to avoid focusing or writing too heavily on my status as an HIV positive individual, lest it come to define me. There are two times throughout the year, however, where I make it a practice to reflect on the virus. One occurs around the early weeks of Epiphany, the season when I received my diagnosis in January of 2011. The other is around December 1, or World AIDS Day. This year, in an odd peculiarity of the liturgical cycle, World AIDS Day happens to fall on the first Sunday in Advent: the beginning of a new liturgical year, and a season that awaits the embodied, incarnate love of God. Needless to say, I’m not going to allow this unique opportunity for reflection to slip past me. 

But, there is a host of challenges here, not least of which is the reality that, as the anniversary of my diagnosis looms on the yearly horizon, I am routinely thrust back into a place of almost unbearable vulnerability. It’s a place to which I would rather not venture. The day-in and day-out matter of living with the virus is, in some ways, easily escapable these days; unlike other wounds that mark our lives, this one is invisible, inscribed inside of me, rather than etched into my flesh. (The only tangible reminder I have of it comes to me every evening at 10:30 when I take my antiretroviral medication.)
 
We read that resurrection does not undo those wounds we acquire in life — the signs of Jesus’s execution were not erased in his risen form. Yet, they were changed, at least conceptually. Signs of shame — warnings about the consequences of resisting the imperial imagination — became signs of love, triumph in humility. I have to wonder what my own wound, a stigma shared with many across three decades, will look like in the age to come. Surely it is impossible to erase something invisible? But does that also mean the nature of its transformation will be equally undetectable?

That is the word we throw around these days, isn’t it? “It’s okay, I’m undetectable.” This is the parlance we use to describe a state of treatment when the HIV virus reaches such low levels in the blood stream that it becomes almost impossible to detect, and, therefore, exponentially more difficult to transmit — it indicates that antiretroviral treatments are doing their job, sending the virus into a form of retreat, though not permanent elimination. This is, in my own estimation, a real point of progress in HIV treatment and prevention. I have been at an undetectable status for just over two years now, and this gives me solace, knowing that the chances of transmitting the virus are now infinitesimally small, and that my life will be greatly extended to near “normal” expectancy.

Being undetectable, however, has not erased the other ways the virus is present in my life, and in the lives of others living with it. Despite treatments, education, and highly effective prevention methods (when used correctly), a looming specter of stigmatization hangs over those living with the virus. I had been, for the most part, rather immune to this reality until, that is, my long-term relationship took on a new shape. Suddenly, I find myself having to disclose to potential partners, and the results have been revealing. The physical wound is now giving way to the spiritual wounds of rejection and devaluation. Words like “clean” and “dirty” begin to confront me in a way that I imagine has been the daily reality for most positive individuals; “dirty,” “unclean,” “tainted,” “poisonous.” Suddenly, I’m dangerous, and while I am objectively aware that these value-judgments bear no scientific validity, the judgments still subjectively inflict and incise. Will this new dimension of the wound be as equally undetectable? What will be the manner of its transformation?

The frightening reality is that Advent peers into the complexity of this condition. While the liturgical narrative waits expectantly on the Incarnation of Jesus, you and I already know the rest of the story. Advent invariably points to Good Friday and, thereafter, Easter. The miracle of the Word made flesh realizes its own destiny: the incarnate Word is poised to share our wounds with us, and in so doing alters their nature. There is hope in Advent, to be sure. This hope, however, is also aware of its own struggles.

It is, therefore, not unfitting that at the beginning of Advent we should pause to consider how we are wounded, how we wound others, and how our daily resurrection — our daily participation in the wounded Body of Christ — has the potential to transform what might be an otherwise bleak narrative. Each year I spend with the virus is a continued gift. I do not say this to make light of the continued loss and pain suffered by those who have come before me and those with whom I am now marked; rather, I say it to celebrate the meanings that go beyond an otherwise one dimensional reading of life with HIV. There is hope in our woundedness, just as there was hope on both Christmas and Easter morning: this hope is transformation, not erasure. It signals to us that, in the midst of our deepest theodicy, we cannot ask why God would seemingly allow the fractures which distress and distort our vision of ourselves. God, instead, is best seen in these fractures and how we continually transform them into those sites at which we are visited by the divine. Erasure is too simple, perhaps too human and answer.

God, however, is seldom this simple, and seldom this clear cut. Perhaps this is one of the authentic lessons of the Advent season of God’s own fleshy manifestation in a backwater Roman province, amid the wounds and fractures inflicted by those worldly powers that so often cause us to peer up, rather than down amid our own endless transformative possibilities.

Those Who Bear Our Demons

Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. —Luke 8:35 –37

Sean R. Glenn
-Integrity Blogger

Earlier in September, I wrote a piece for Walking With Integrity concerning the spike of recent anti-LGBT violence in Seattle, Washington, wherein I brought to light the need for a re-articulation of our witness despite our victories on the political stage. Although I had exhausted my concerns about events particular to Seattle, a feeling of unease remained with me; there was more to say. Seattle is not a singularity, and the violence suffered there is being felt elsewhere, too; in other regions where (at least legally) the stigmatization of LGBT folk is beginning to be torn down. As such, I offer a continuation of my previous submission, with the desire to see beyond localized events and consider some tricky theological ideas.

October 12, 2013 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the death of gay Episcopalian, Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was brutally tortured and left to die, hung on a fence near Laramie, Wyoming; an unspeakable act of homophobic violence. The story is well known; Shepard’s death sparked an almost unprecedented flood of civil rights activism, activism which eventually led to legislation that bears Shepard’s name: the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This transformation is, to my mind, salvific; it speaks its own kind of soteriology. Much like the cross, Shepard’s fence was transformed—it did not win. The sin of murder was transformed into the grace of protection for others; by bearing witness to Shepard’s death, communities proclaimed witness for those under the threat of oppression everywhere. Fifteen years later, we remember our queer martyr, our queer saint, knowing full well that the work before us—at home and abroad—is not done. Queer communities continue to live under the specter of violence, even in those regions (such as New York,ⁱ Massachusetts, and Washington State) where we are afforded protections of the law, the right to legal recognition of our relationships, and the support of our allies, within the church and outside.

I want to suggest, from a theological perspective, that a curious thing is happening, and to do so, I turn us to the Lukan pericope above and a homily thereon by Dr. Thomas H. Troeger. My last piece highlighted local violence in Seattle, but Seattle is not the only place that LGBT communities, to the surprise of many, continue to face unexpected—and sometimes, fatal—force. I posited the notion that continued solidarity is requisite; that work for affirming communities of faith is now required beyond the walls of our churches; that our witness must extend beyond those groups we have already fought to recognize (and, most certainly to those groups which are uncomfortable for us to recognize); that the work begun at our baptisms is never over. What I failed to mention, however, is that however much we might recognize this need, the continued presence of the hegemonic imagination is liable to render within us a legitimate anxiety. It would be a refusal of pastoral care to ignore this anxiety. Violence enacted in areas where we would otherwise presume protection—places like Seattle and New York City—reveals that we cannot presume an extant realization of our shared dream. As New York City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn has said, “I mean, a man was shot in Greenwich Village because he was gay. I thought those days were long behind us.”ⁱⁱ

Many of us thought these days were long behind us. To be sure, with work, they can be. The Lukan pericope cited at the beginning of this essay is useful to this end; it illustrates a kind of cultural anthropology that, as illustrated by Dr. Thomas Troeger, and despite the yawning gap of time between the first century and now, remains enacted: deviance labeling.ⁱⁱⁱ Concerning Luke’s account of Jesus’ healing of the Gerasene demoniac, Troeger says,

His [the demoniac] community had tightened their circle
to keep him out.
He is not like us
He is the mad one.
The sick one.
The crazy one.
The unnatural one.
The misfit.
He is the utterly other. [. . .]
Deviance labeling
is a way for us to escape
dealing with our own fears and angers.
We heap our projected fears upon those who are different from us.
And because there are so many of these demons
their name is “Legion,”
which is exactly the name given to them
in the biblical story. [. . .]
Calling the demon “Legion”
suggests that there is nothing inherently wrong with the man himself.
He has been invaded
by demons not of his own making.^iv

This should, of course, seem entirely obvious to us. Scapegoats have habitually formed communal identity. While I do not condone the act of scapegoating, we must realize that we still live in a world that, knowingly or unknowingly, thrusts its own demons onto others. To be sure, this is a reality that Jesus recognized and sought to critique. Br. Robert L’Esperance, SSJE, brings this to light in a homily on Luke 8:19-21. L’Esperance illustrates that the ministry of Jesus
undid many of the assumptions that undergird his society and the various social constructs that held it together. It raised the whole issue of group belonging and thorny religious questions of group identity, inclusivity and exclusivity, and who could lay claim to the Abrahamic covenant, not to mention who would serve as scapegoat, the essential social glue that held these groups together.^v

What intrigues me, however, is the community’s response after Jesus heals the demoniac—after Jesus renders his status as scapegoat unstable, illegitimate, and the fault of the community. We are not privy to the rest of the story. Jesus tells the man to go back to his community and “declare how much God has done for” him. What we are told, however, is that the Gerasenes present at the healing were “seized with fear,” asking Jesus to leave. As Troeger writes,

What were they afraid of?
If the man himself
had been the problem,
then they would have had nothing to fear.
He was in his right mind now.
They were afraid
because the man
could no longer be their scapegoat.
They were afraid
because their neat and simplistic world
of who is in and who is out
had vanished.
They were afraid
because their deviance labeling
would now have to end.
They were afraid
because they could no longer
project phobias upon the man.
They were afraid
because now they would have to acknowledge
that it is the whole community
in need of exorcism.^vi

The undoing of presumed social glues can be the catalyst for fear, rather than due self-examination. I am well acquainted with this fear; theological education is surprisingly adept at dismantling long-held convictions, and my time in seminary was the cause of a great period of paralyzing dislocation. It is a fear with which I continue to battle. As our work for equality lifts LGBT communities out of the mire of stigmatization, we may find the imagination of closet unwilling to relinquish its control, terrified to examine itself as the unstable construct that it is. As the Spirit says to our paradigms “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,”^vii we may find ourselves required to begin a new kind of work, a continuation of the work already done. Reconciliation is never easy, but it is our calling; it is our duty; it is the nature of our on-going soteriological transformation. In so doing, may we also remember that we cannot ourselves, as stigmatized communities, fall into the same patterns as those paradigms that would seek to do us harm.

“No more scapegoats
No more chanting:
‘You’re out, you’re out,
you can’t come in!”^viii

i “Is Anti-LGBT Violence on the Rise in NYC?” <http://gothamist.com/2013/08/19/is_anti-lgbt_violence_on_the_rise_i.php> (accessed October 1, 2013).

ii “Anti-gay Hate Crimes set to double in New York City in 2013,” <http://rt.com/usa/anti-gay-crimes-double-691/> (accessed October 1, 2013).

iii Thomas H. Troeger, “No More Scapegoats,” in ed. Olive Elaine Hinnant, God Comes Out: A Queer Homiletic (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2007), 42.

iv Ibid.

v Br. Robert L’Esperance, SSJE, “Belonging to Jesus,” a sermon preached at the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Cambridge, MA, September 24, 2013 <http://ssje.org/ssje/2013/09/24/belonging-to-jesus-br-robert-lesperance/#more-8507> (accessed October 1, 2013). Emphasis mine.

vi Troeger, “No More Scapegoats,” 43.

vii Acts 10:15.

viii Troeger, “No More Scapegoats,” 46.

Witnesses and Pilgrims: A Journey Into the Church

Greetings!

Earlier this week, I was asked if I might offer my work as a contributor to the Walking With Integrity blog. I humbly and gratefully accepted, and, as such, this post is offered as an introduction to the Integrity readership; a chance to tell my story and discuss topics about which I plan to write.

I grew up in Edmonds, Washington, a small sea-side suburb near Seattle, Washington, a city to which I would eventually move during the duration of my undergraduate career as a student of cello performance at Cornish College of the Arts. Although my family taught me the value of spirituality during my upbringing, I was not raised in a Christian context (though I was, in many ways, raised with the Christian values of justice, equity, respect, and the recognition of human dignity). For the most part, the Church was viewed with a characteristic West Coast suspicion. For most of my youth, I flatly rejected the premise of organized religion and, for that matter, religion on the whole. It was a dangerous folly of the human condition (or so I assumed).

Yet, from an early age, I recognized a personal affinity for music, art, and architecture of a particular liturgical bent. I was not able to put words to this affinity until my first eucharistic liturgy as a member of the choirs at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. I had, of course, supplemented my income as a teenager by playing cello for other liturgical contexts, but it wasn’t until the liturgy in the Anglican tradition, connected with an historical imagination, that I felt suddenly less apprehensive about the religious subject. Within that context, music was no longer an adornment, a commodity, or a consumer product. Music became peculiarly alive; music became multidimensional, transchronological, and ministerial. This was not the museum veneration of the concert hall; this music transformed from historical artifact into living reality. I say this knowing full well that many of the elements of liturgical action are, indeed, affect—that is, somehow “unauthentic.” Yet, it was this very affectation that became real, honest, and authentic. Paradox, it seems, became a close companion.

And so, within the context of my first liturgy, I resolved to change my trajectory (though little did I know that this trajectory held far more for me than I initially expected). This resolve, however, confounded a growing internal struggle that had begun my first day of conservatory training. It was difficult to concentrate on my cellistic studies; though I am glad my teacher at the time forced me to work through it. After completing my bachelor of music, I set off on a new adventure: I moved to New York City to begin a master of arts in music composition at Queens College, during which time I was recruited to sing as a chorister at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine under the inimitable improvisateur, Bruce Neswick.

During my second year of graduate study, I began to discern a call to ministry in the Episcopal Church, though I did not know what that would end up looking like; though a confessed Episcopalian on the outside, I still had my doubts. I decided to apply for a Master of Sacred Music at the Yale ISM and Boston University. While neither institution accepted me to the MSM degree, the BU School of Theology rather unexpectedly offered me a place as a candidate for the Master of Theological Studies after the completion of my M.A.Mus.

Then, quite monumentally, my life changed again. On January 10, 2011 I was diagnosed with the HIV virus. It was a blow I had not expected, from which I did not know if I could recover spiritually. Not three days after my diagnosis, however, I attended a daily said Eucharist at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. It was the height of Epiphany season, and the Celebrant’s sermon that day spoke to me in uncanny ways. I thanked the priest afterward and divulged the reason for my gratitude. “Your words hit me at my core today,” I said, “for you see, I was diagnosed with HIV three days ago.” The Reverend Canon took my hands, looked me in the eye, and smiling said, “We live now. This is when God comes to us.” It knew right then and there what the role of a priest really was, and I resolved that, someday, I would seek ordination (though I kept this to myself for two more years).

Theological education changed my life forever: now, no conceptual or ontological stone is left unturned; no assumption is left unquestioned. It was at BU that I discovered Queer Theology, social activism, and a burning desire for justice. I have since graduated from the MTS program at BU and am working as a liturgical musician in Boston, teaching cello, composing, and working, in my due time, toward becoming a priest in the Episcopal Church, should the Spirit carry me that direction.

The work I offer to Walking With Integrity, given my own interests and educational trajectory, will focus on the arts—music, architecture, dance, and visual craft—as well as related topics in Queer Theology (my MTS thesis was the formulation of a queer theology of music) and their relationship to Anglicanism. The first piece I hope to offer (sometime toward the end of September) will focus on Anglicanism’s great patron of twentieth century arts, the Reverend Walter Hussey.

I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you, and I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about that which I most love.