Visit #7: The Rainbow Cellar
deVan had a serious look on his face. He entered the back door of the church, the door left ajar even though the front door was locked tight, and entered the area where the 14 Stations of the Cross were hung, the pictures circling the walls around the pews. These pictures told the story of the execution of Jesus by Roman authorities.
After stopping at each Station, deVan strode back to Picture #12, the one with his friend looking down from his cross. “Hello, Jesus.”
“deVan, good morning. Have you had a good week?”
“I’ve had an interesting week. First of all, I met some Christians who think queer is just fine. They are Episcopalians. Do you know what they are?”
“Yes.”
“They have bishops and priests and guess what? They have the Stations of the Cross in their church.”
“How did you meet them?”
“This is the interesting part. They opened up something they called “The Rainbow Cellar.”
As always, Jesus was fascinated by deVan’s discoveries. “What is it?”
“Obviously, it’s a cellar.”
“I see.”
“It’s the basement of the church. A real cellar, with concrete walls and floor. They dressed it up with chairs and tables and a few rugs. I think they added some lights to make it brighter. You walk down old wooden steps to get to it.”
“What goes on there?”
“It’s for me and other queer people.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“A kid at my school told me about it. Jeremiah Font. He’s gay and Episcopalian. He gave me a flyer telling me all about this Rainbow Cellar.”
“What happens there?”
“Reverend Marjorie is in charge of it. She’s the assistant to the pastor. She said we’ll figure out what will happen as we go along. She said The Rainbow Cellar is a place of welcome and inclusion, which I’m not sure what all that means.”
“This sounds like a good thing, deVan.”
deVan nodded. “It is. Our first meeting we all sat in a circle and said our names and what we thought made us part of the LGBTQ+ community. There were 16 of us, all teenagers. That first time around the circle was emotional, you know?”
Jesus didn’t know. “What made it emotional? You were just telling everyone your names.”
deVan shook his head. “You should have been there. Three of the kids said their names out loud for the first time ever. A couple of others only use their names with their closest friends; their parents don’t even know they picked their names. One girl started crying and couldn’t stop. I ran over and stooped down in front of her and held her hand.”
“What happened then?”
“She looked up at me with tears all over her face. She said, ‘You need a haircut.’”
“What?”
“It was great. Everybody laughed. It didn’t bother me.”
“No?”
“Well, I got a haircut the next day.”
“You did need one. What happened next?”
“Reverend Marjorie said we had enough tears. She had us go around again and say the best thing that happened in the past month.”
“How did that go?”
“Good. I don’t remember all the best things everybody said. One person said he got his first banana split ever, and it was delicious. A girl got new running shoes and the members of her track team said they were the coolest.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them about my talk with a homophobic woman.”
Jesus was getting accustomed to deVan’s sudden digressions into topics more interesting than the one being discussed. “Who was this woman?”
“She was the sacristan for Reverend Marjorie’s church. That means she takes care of the church. After our Rainbow meeting I walked up from the cellar and went into the church. That’s when I found out they have the Stations of the Cross. I was checking them out when I heard her in one of the back pews.”
“So you know they are called pews.”
deVan sighed. “What I know is everything in these churches has a different name, so I just Google them. I don’t want to walk up to you and call a pew a bench.”
“It wouldn’t bother me.”
“And I wouldn’t want to call a sacristan a cleaning lady.”
“That would be fine with me.”
“Sure it would, except for the little smirk whenever I make a mistake or say the wrong word for something.”
“I don’t smirk. You won’t read anywhere in the Bible, ‘And Jesus smirked.’”
“Like you said before, the people who wrote about you thought you were all high and mighty.”
“I was.”
“My point is, they all knew you smirked. They just didn’t think it was a great idea to write about it.
“Tell me about the sacristan.”
“She loves her job and she’s good at it. She said being over six feet tall — she’s very tall — means she can do her work way faster than most women. She can reach anywhere. Then she found out about the Rainbow Cellar.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She was invited to a meeting of the top church people in this church where they discussed the idea.”
“She didn’t like the idea.”
“She said she came around when they started having women priests, even though that took some getting used to. And all kinds of new stuff she also had to get used to.”
“What stuff?”
“She didn’t say. But, this, this homosexual thing, I think that’s how she put it, was too much. ‘Too much what?’ I asked her. She said we were letting sin into the church.”
“What did you think about that?”
“I felt bad for her. She is homophobic. Can you imagine what it’s like for her to clean up the rainbow cellar after a bunch of sinners were just there laughing with the Associate Pastor?”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I felt bad for her. She didn’t know I was one of the sinners. She said she knew I’d understand because I had great faith.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“Oh, I kind of knew what she meant. I said to her, ‘Just because you saw me going around the Stations of the Cross a couple of times, that doesn’t mean I’m some kind of saint.”
“What?” Jesus said.
“She was shocked. She said, ‘you knew I was there?’ I said yes. She said she was back in the shadows, that I couldn’t have seen her. I said that’s true for most people, but not me. I said she has a very unusual shadow, long and thin, and that dress that goes almost to the floor.”
Jesus was more than intrigued. “So this sacristan, a six foot tall very thin woman, was the ghostly figure you saw over by the third Station.”
“Yep. She came to pray and slipped into the shadows when she heard me come in. She came back the next week too.”
“Pray? She has her own church.”
“Jesus, people can pray anywhere. I could go to my bedroom and shut the door and pray in total quiet. In fact, I think more people should do it that way.”
“Me too. But back to the story.”
“Right. She came to this church because, first, she knew about the open back door, and, second, she said she wasn’t comfortable praying in her own church because of the homosexual thingy. When she saw me at the Stations, she thought I was an angel or something. Then I ran into her at her church and she said God sent me. I wanted to say, whoa, lady, God didn’t send me; a flyer sent me. But guess what, Jesus?”
“What, deVan?”
“ I did what you said. I decided to just listen to her. I said, ‘what made you think that?’”
“Excellent, deVan. What did she say?”
“She said she felt in her heart I would give her guidance. I’m thinking, whoa, lady, I’m a kid. I don’t guide; I stumble, you know? But I kept listening. She said seeing me at the Stations of the Cross was a sign, since she’s carrying her own cross. I never felt so – so symbolical.”
“What did you say then?”
“I said, ‘live in love, ma’am.’ I called her ma’am because I didn’t know what else to call her. She said, ‘how do I do that? These people are sinning.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s hard sometimes when people think differently from you. I have a friend, Abrielle,’ I said, ‘who doesn’t think I’m an angel at all. She passes me in the hall and ignores me.’”
Jesus said, “What did…uh, ma’am say to that?”
“She got upset, really upset. She said, ‘How could someone do that to you? It’s cruel.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, she also punched out a bully who was harassing me.’ That surprised her. ‘Then this girl doesn’t hate you.’ I said, ‘No, ma’am, we have different feelings about each other.’”
Jesus smiled, one supposes. “How did ma’am handle that?”
“She basically asked me how I handle it with all kinds of feelings flying around.”
“And you said?”
“Ready for this? I said, ‘Tomorrow is all new. We keep working at it. If we haven’t figured it out, there always another tomorrow.’ Pretty good, right?”
deVan was sure Jesus nodded. “I couldn’t have said it better, deVan. How did ma’am react to that?”
“Ha,” deVan said. “This is where it gets interesting. All of a sudden, I think she realizes I’m not really an angel. She squints her eyes and says, ‘What brought you here? I know you’re not part of this Church.’”
“You mean she suddenly realized that?”
“Exactly.”
“What did you do? How did you respond?”
deVan took a deep breath. “Okay, I turned toward her and put my hand on top of hers. She looked down at my hand and then up into my face. I looked at her and said, ‘I came to the Rainbow Cellar, ma’am. I am transgender.”
Jesus paused for a few seconds. “What happened then?”
deVan took another breath. “She cried, Jesus. She just cried.”
