I want to thank the organizers for asking me to speak this evening, and I’
m certainly glad to be with all of you, as we mark yet another World AIDS
Day. Of course, I wish we were marking the end of AIDS at this point in
the epidemic, but I think we all wish that, and I keep hoping every year
that we will gather for the last time, and that we will celebrate the end of it
all, the end of disease and its continuing affect on the people we know
here in Berrien County, and its continuing effect on people all over the
world. It would be good, wouldn’t it, to do something like that—to do
ONLY the work of remembrance, rather than having to press the world
for more action to end this disease and help those who are still living with
it, day after day. I’ve been involved with HIV and AIDS as a staff member
at two different AIDS organization—as the development director at the
Spokane AIDS Network in Washington state, and also as the
Development and Pastoral Care Director at the AIDS Interfaith Network in
Dallas, Texas. But I didn’t come to care about this disease because I
was professionally involved with the good work that is being done to
alleviate the effects of this disease—I came to care about this disease
because it affected me personally, and it affected my friends, some
whom I also consider to be my family. I suspect that is true for most of us
here this evening—we are here because AIDS touched us personally, it
touched our friends and it touched our families and it has left its mark on
us, forever.
My friend Timothy, Timothy Owen, was a graduate student at the
University of Alabama in the late eighties when I first met him. He lived in
the Presbyterian House near the campus, which was essentially a
boarding house for Presbyterians and folks from other traditions,
including some other religions as well. Timothy had a room there, as did
I, and because we were both gay men, we had a natural bond. He wasn’t
at the house a lot, because he worked for a large, conservative and
wealthy Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, and so we would see him
only occasionally, when he was in town for his classes, finishing up his
masters degree. I can’t say we were close, really, because Timothy, in
many ways, wasn’t the kind of guy I would naturally hang out with—at
that point in my life, I was all about the idealism, as one tends to be in
college, and he was a lot more into stuff—he loved Honda Accords and
he loved the trappings of wealth. His background was lower middle
class, and so wealth, and stuff intrigued him a lot more than it did me, at
that point in my life. We weren’t going to be natural buddies, but we
were friends—but what changed my journey with him came with late night
phone call from him, saying he wanted to talk, and would I be willing to
meet with him later that night. And so we met, and as we sat together,
he began to cry and shake as he shared with me what only two other
people knew—his doctor and his insurance agent, for whom he gone to
get a life insurance policy and whose AIDS test found the virus in his
blood—he told he was HIV positive, at the age of 23. Now, in 1990, that
was seen as a death sentence—there were no drugs, no effective drugs
anyway, really, and because we were fairly young—I was maybe 20—
and we hung out with younger people, we really didn’t know of anyone
who was forthright about being HIV-positive. I really don’t know why he
chose me to be third person he wanted to tell—maybe its because we
were both people of faith, maybe because he thought he could trust me
with his secret and he just needed someone else to know, and to
understand. I don’t know if I can say I understood it, really—again, I was
20 and pretty naïve myself, and had never really had any experience
with anyone having a life-threatening illness.
Years later, after college, when the disease eventually began breaking
down his immune system, I got a call from one of his friends saying that
he was in hospital, and not doing well at all. It sent shock waves through
his circle of friends, most of whom did not know he was living with HIV,
and it sent a tremor through that conservative Presbyterian church he
had now worked at for years. When he emerged out of the hospital, the
parents at the church he worked at would no longer allow him to be their
children’s music tutor, so it deprived him of much needed income, as
much I think it hurt him personally. Eventually, the church itself became
conflicted about continuing to keep him on staff, since his AIDS had also
outed him as a gay man. For months, the church fought a battle with
Timothy about his employment, and demanded that he sign a letter
acknowledging the sinfulness of his homosexuality, if he wanted to keep
his private health insurance paid for by the church. It was one of those
moments in my life when I really, really considered giving up on the
church, and it still is one of those moments that makes me understand
why people have given up on the Christian faith—I know, I’ve been there
myself, right on the edge of the door, ready to walk out.
But what amazed me is that for the first time in his life, really, Timothy
took a stand—he wouldn’t sign the letter the church wanted him to sign,
and it surprised me, it really surprised me, because he was not the kind
of guy, frankly, that had really stood up for much in his brief life. I don’t
think it’s a criticism of him as much as it was his real desire to be liked
and respected—the desire for the good life and for a new Honda Accord
every couple of years was what he cared about, to be frank, though he
also had a great love for beautiful music, and he had spent his whole life
giving that love away to the churches that he had served as an organist
since he was 13 or 14 years old. This disease had forced him to
change, and, to consider something bigger than himself, some principle
bigger than his own life. Now, don’t get me wrong—I know of other
stories where the change wasn’t all that positive—in fact, it went in the
opposite direction, but for Timothy, AIDS had grown his soul, and for
those around him during that time, it grew our souls as well. Sadly,
though, the church continued and continued to demand that he sign the
letter, and he eventually gave in, mostly because he didn’t want to spend
his last days without the best care possible. None of us who were his
friends blamed him for that—we were just surprised that he had fought
so long and so bravely for something he knew to be true in his own
heart, that he was loved by God for who he was, a gay man with
happened to have HIV.
I come to things like World AIDS day because of Timothy, who died in
1994, just another person amongst the thousands who died that year
from HIV, according to the statistics from morbidity report from that year.
But he wasn’t a faceless statistic—he was my friend, a fellow traveler on
the road of faith and love, and I miss him. I suspect that is why we are
here today—because we miss our friends and family, and we don’t want
to lose anymore of them to this disease. The last year of Timothy’s life
gave me great hope, as much as it challenged my faith, because out of
this great pain came a great man, which surprised most of us that knew
him. If something like this can happen in the shadow places of this world,
maybe there is hope, maybe there is a reason to believe in our ability to
survive our own crucifixions, maybe there can be resurrection on this
side of eternity.
I know there aren’t a lot of people here today, but when places are
empty, including the spaces of worship that I’ve had the privilege to
preach and teach within, I always remind people that the room is always
full, because those who have gone before us are in the room as well—
that is what my tradition believes, that the saints go on, and when we
gather, they gather with us, all of them, and I have hope because of that
belief, that my friend Timothy and your friends, and your family are with
us in this room, right here, right now. I’m glad they are, because if the
room is more crowded than we can see, then maybe we can draw on the
energy of this unseen crowd to move us to go forward and change the
way the world understands and deals with HIV and AIDS. But its still
personal, you know, because more than anything, beyond the need for
my activism, I simply miss my friend Timothy but his presence is with us,
as is the presence of your family and your friends, and in the presence
of so many unseen companions, it makes it all doable, this work before
us of changing the world.
