Friday’s Feast #156

Appetizer

Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day?

I have yet to find the bottom of the pile. Ever. That’s all I’m saying about this subject.

Soup

In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old?

Dead.

Salad

What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both?

To study flute with Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway as a member of their Masterclass in Switzerland for one week in the summer of 2008.

Main Course

Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately.

In my profession, I see, read and hear unbelievable things all the time, so I have a lot of material from which to choose. However, I found this article quite disturbing for many reasons:

Texas Megachurch Cancels Memorial for Gay Navy Vet

Saturday, August 11, 2007

ARLINGTON, Texas — A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

“It’s a slap in the face. It’s like, ‘Oh, we’re sorry he died, but he’s gay so we can’t help you,’” she said Friday.

Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men “engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing.”

Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.

“We did decline to host the service — not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle,” Simons told The Associated Press. “Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it — yes, we would have declined then. It’s not that we didn’t love the family.”

Simons said the decision had nothing to do with the obituary. He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends.

“Even though we could not condone that lifestyle, we went above and beyond for the family through many acts of love and kindness,” Simons said.

Wright called the church’s claim about the pictures “a bold-faced lie.” She said she provided numerous family pictures of Sinclair, including some with his partner, but said none showed men kissing or hugging.

The 5,000-member High Point Church was founded in 2000 by Simons and his wife, April, whose brother is Joel Osteen, well-known pastor of the 38,000-member Lakewood Church in Houston. Now High Point meets in a 432,000-square-foot facility in Arlington, near Dallas.

Wright said relatives declined the church’s offer to hold the service at a community center because they felt it was an inappropriate venue. It ultimately was held at a funeral home, but the cancellation still lingered in some minds, she said.

Check back this Sunday — I will be writing about this in conjunction with Blog Your Blessings Sunday. In the meantime, feel free to express your feelings or opinion in a comment.

Dessert

On a scale of 1–10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today?

I’m still trying to shake the stomache flu, so I’m tired and feeling pretty blah. But I will be back to my typically perky self soon, I’m sure.