Dreamwielder centers around Makirra, a humble farm girl gifted with the power to dream—in a land where that ability brings supernatural rewards, but where dreams are outlawed by a tyrannical ruler. This basic human function and the magic it carries makes the rustic Makirra, and the friends she makes on her journey, a threat to the power established by that land’s emperor.

Just as  LOTR is easily understood as a tale of class consciousness & struggle, there are clear parallels to us regular Earth-folk in Dreamwielder and the forces we must wage against & can call to our aid.

A preview and full download are available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/128661494/Dreamwielder & https://ganxy.com/i/74538/garrett-calcaterra/dreamwielder. More of Garrett, including past publications, at http://www.garrettcalcaterra.com.  Follow this video link for a right kickin’ book trailer that sets the opening to music: .

Kingston addressed a crowd of approximately 100, reading from her novel Woman Warrior and more recent autobiographical novel/political protest/stream-of-consciousness language romp The Fifth Book of Peace, relating, among other things, her experience getting arrested at an early protest against the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Bathed center-stage in the ghostly swirl of her own hair, Kingston’s whispery voice occassionally rocked the audience with asteroids of feedback. In her cadences and natural affection for the crowd it was easy to detect one of her literary heroes—Walt Whitman, the literary namesake of the fictional element of The Fifth Book of Peace and her earlier Tripmaster Monkey—Wittman Ah Sing.

Kingston invoked the patriotic cultural law-breaker several times by name, too, along with like-minded literary figures William Carlos Williams and Alice Walker.

The grandmotherly Kingston, with her face of warm wheat rolls, described how on International Woman’s Day in 2003, she, Alice Walker and 25 other women were arrested at a peaceful protest. The collected group was celebratory in its incarceration, smiling for photographers, and singing in the cells. The arresting officer of Alice Walker—a black man—was apparently heard to say, “My wife’s going to kill me for this.” At the station, the booking officer told the defiantly cheerful women, “This is your mug shot, not your prom picture.”

The episode coincided well with Kingston’s literary theme of the evening: the heritage of strong female leaders in China. And it proved she works as much as

John Fowles

she writes for her explicitly proclaimed life goal—peace.

The season’s remaining speakers for the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing reading series follows:

Mar. 11: ZULFIKAR GHOSE novelist, poet and essayist, the Pakistani native writes in the Latin American surrealist tradition and his numerous books include The Triple Mirror of the Self (1992), A New History of Torments (1982), Crump’s Terms (1975), The Incredible Brazilian (a trilogy), and The Murder of Aziz Khan (1967). He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas-Austin.

Apr 1: ANDREW LAM web editor of New America Media, author of the forthcoming Birds of Paradise, a collection of short stories, along with Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. As a boy, Lam led a privileged life in Vietnam as the son of General Lâm Quang Thi of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam before attending the University of California, Berkeley. He currently lives in San Francisco.

 Apr. 15: KAREN YAMASHITA a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award, her novels include I Hotel (2010), Circle K Cycles (2001), Tropic of Orange (1997), Brazil-Maru (1992), and Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990). Yamashita is an Associate Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches creative writing and Asian American literature.

Apr. 22: DAVID MATLIN
nominated for the National Book Circle Critic’s award for his first novel, How the Night is Divided, Matlin’s newest release is A Halfman Dreaming. His other poetry and prose includes the books China Beach, Dressed in a Protective Fashion,  and Fontana’s Mirror. He is a professor at San Diego State University.

All events are free, open to the public, and begin at 7 p.m. in the Henley Reading Room/Leatherby Libraries
.

While issue #4, Oh Baby!  rests in the nurturing womb of its final edit, we’re offering you, dear readers and other generous well-wishers, a valuable opportunity to get all three dirtcakes issues for just $25. Read about it on the “Special Offer” link here.

Prayer cards in Tokyo

I offer fragments and a world premiere as gifts too.

Last September, on the UN International Day of Peace, I attended the Big Orange Book Festival in Orange, CA, to represent dirtcakes. To celebrate our wide range of voices – our first three issues feature voices from 17 countries – and in the spirit of our mission statement to “illuminate a shared global humanity,” I created and performed a cento, a mash-up of prose and poetry lines taken from the first three issues. It includes one line from each contributor, in 12 stanzas, or steps as I prefer to call them. 12 steps will get you over anything, right?

As far as I know, this is a world premiere, not only of the first dirtcakes mash-up, but also of the newly hatched form of Contributor Voices Chorus cento.

Over the next few weeks I’ll post one or two sections at a time.

Your Reading Companion:

• Lines in italics are from contributors.
• Words in brackets within the italicized lines are issue titles, inserted sporadically to create a rhythmic downbeat, backtalk.
• Source notes at the end include the issue title, the page number where the line is found, and the author’s last name.  Hyperlinks to authors’ websites are provided where available. (I didn’t read these source notes aloud. They’re just for you.)

dirtcakes

cento erasure mashup deconstruction reconstruction chorus with moment of silence please breathe

I.

This is a poem I stood and fought - 

wild [hunger] black [hunger] raspberries 

I was alone, a little drunk and writerly, typing out Stubborness
(watch for studded belts and mohawks)

It isn’t that hard to find a human who is starving 

I dreamed that you were reading my palm
I carried my child for 46 years
apron stained with red spaghetti sauce 

I offer a child a perfect peach
fish may rest in graves
soft as sweetcakes after all the milky birds have flown

~~~

Sources:

1.Girls Will Be Women, 49. Chen
2.The Hunger Issue, 18. Romkema
3. School Me, 28. Sims
4. Girls Will Be Women, 47. Janov
5. The Hunger Issue, 9. Keefe
6. Girls Will Be Women, 83. Chalar
7. Girls Will Be Women, 39. Henney
8. Girls Will Be Women, 46. Beck
9. The Hunger Issue, 13. Starkey
10.Girls Will Be Women, 20. Chen
11. Girls Will Be Women, 21. Dotson

For more good reading, remember to take advantage of our special offer.
Peace,
Catherine

It should be easy to dismiss the document as a lunatic’s last ramblings. The desperate vestiges of sanity sputtered out before a psychopath’s civilian and cop-killing rampage.

But the early morning hail of bullets by LAPD officers on two women delivering newspapers in an otherwise, understandably peaceful neighborhood should cast some doubt on the seemingly extreme elements in Dorner’s message, though not excuse his alleged actions.

While mainstream news media outlets feed a morbid fascination with the vigilante-type figure, shouldn’t we also focus with as much intensity on the inexcusable “accident” that saw scores of bullets shot at the two women trapped in the truck?

In the picture for the Los Angeles Times, there are 46 visible bullet holes and casings. Five more were lodged in the entryway of a resident. Blessedly, the women survived—Carranza with mere scratches from the blasted glass, but her mother with two bullets in her back.

There was no warning. No signal to stop and disarm, according to a statement for Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71. Just the sudden wall of bullets delivered by at least seven officers.

You can read it as comic embarrassment or divine intervention that the two women survived, but the entire scenario must give rise to at least one among a set of questions: What could have been the intention of the officers?

A few streets and moments away, different officers rammed into a truck driven by surfer David Purdue and again shot up the vehicle. Again, luckily, the innocent driver was not fatally wounded.

Both parties were driving trucks of a different model and color than the suspected Dorner’s. Neither received instructions to stop or alter course.

One defense brought forward for police officers right now is that, as a specified target of Dorner, they feel heightened tension. It’s difficult to imagine a more stressful occupation than police officer where you daily lay your life on the line. But isn’t that specific to the job description? In the end, what makes Dorner so much more dangerous than any armed assailant escaping down an alleyway that officers feel justified in trying to kill him by surprise?

The deaths attributed to Dorner—of Monica Quan, 28, the daughter of the officer appointed at his dismissal hearing, and Keith Lawrence, 27, her fiance, and an officer, 34, in Riverside – are tragic and indefensible. But also tragic and indefensible is that so many of Dorner’s allegations echo with familiarity.

He laments that the days of Rodney King and Rampart never went away, depicts ugly, rampant racism—conventional, intra-ethic, and “reverse” racism—against civilians and fellow officers alike, and writes of officers whose abiding pride is violence.

Without corroborating action like that taken by LAPD officers February 9, the diatribe by Dorner might come off as quickly dismissible.

Police officers, supposedly leaders and protectors of the community, who abide by a bankrupt, bullying set of standards are not leaders nor protectors of anyone, but dangers to the community. Their chosen professions are not simple, enviable, or often appreciated, but a badge ought not to be sought as a license for lawlessness.

This reflection by poet and friend Raundi Moore-Kondo was originally slated for December, the weekend following the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, to be exact. As we all faced that, it seemed perverse to place this post–of celebration on the one hand, but sorrow and healing on the other. At the time, I thought it was glib and inappropriate. But I regret withholding it, as both the women in the article are mothers–I know their children–and, as what they are doing, I believe, is central to the ending the proliferation of violence in this overly-aggressive culture. The healthy understanding of humanness–our bodies, and our vulnerable, incomparable minds–and the healthy expression of  physical and mental states is essential to avoiding the explosion of repressed psychological pain expressed in such events as at the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. I fear the more we let ourselves slip into such repression, the more we pave the path of violence. — JJW

It’s hard to say when The Mammary Chronicles was first conceived. Some believe it was in utero when future blogger Deanne Brown and I retained the tails of

our X chromosomes and began developing the stuff it takes to bear breasts. Or perhaps it was when, unbeknownst to each other, we were simultaneously buying our first training bras.

It might have been thirty years later when we first met and formed a rock band.  It just as likely could have been in November of 2010 when Deanne was

Raundi Moore-Kondo

diagnosed with breast cancer, or a month later when I wrote The Hills Are Alive as an ode to breasts and Deanne before she had her mastectomy.

It is impossible to say for certain, but two years ago when I sat at Deanne’s bedside watching her recover from her first chemotherapy treatment, I wondered how she would ever get past this. Having lost my own mother to cancer, I was completely terrified and could not understand what purpose something so horrific could possibly serve. It was going to be one hell of a battle, and nothing would ever be the same again—but I knew if anyone could prevail it would be Deanne “The Yes Mom” Brown.

Deanne is now two years cancer free and just completed the 3-day, 60-mile walk for Susan G. Komen.  To raise funds for the walk and public awareness, we published and starting touring for The Mammary Chronicles.

January 19t^th- Saturday Afternoon Poetry, 3-5pm Hosted by Don “The King of Poetry” Kingfisher

http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/

February 4^{th -} Club House 7, Laguna Woods  6-9pm

February 23^rd - Friends Café, 8pm - 425 S. Myrtle, Monrovia - Hosted by MOMS WRITE featuring Laura Henneforth, Angela Moore, Jennifer Morford

http://www.meetup.com/Moms-Write-Southern-California

Acoustic Set by MOTHER FUNCTION - www.motherfunctiontheban.wix.com/motherfunction

Dedicated to the celebration and preservation of breasts, the women who have survived them, and in honor of those who haven’t. With five tour stops under our bras, paintings have been created, cakes have been baked and poems have been written. Nearly everyone we meet has a story about breast cancer they are desperate to share. The Mammary Chronicles will continue to exist to provide those who need it a place to express themselves with the depth and breadth that only a piece of art can convey.

Even though we wish we had never heard of the word cancer, we both agree that we have grown exponentially from the experience. We are not the same women we were two years ago. Writing, creating and performing together has become part of the healing process and the organic icing on the macrobiotic cake.

Our mission is to get others talking, writing, creating and healing. This tour wouldn’t have been possible when Deanne and I were buying our training bras because back then the term “breast” was considered a “bad word.” Thanks to brave women like Betty Ford and Susan G. Komen, you can say “breast” just about anywhere you please.

Today you can sing about them, at the top of your lungs, in the middle of a Barnes & Noble without being asked to leave. Newscasters can casually joke about them on the 5 o’clock news and pastors can openly pray for them on Sunday morning. And thank God because if you want to solve a problem you have to be able to talk openly about it. Then if you can somehow rise up and turn your biggest problem into something beautiful and larger than yourself, it can make the pain and loss almost seem worthwhile.  Ladies and gentlemen, that is when the real healing begins.

We all hope to see a cure for this disease one day, but instead of waiting around Deanne and I advise that we all strive to create our own unique cocktail for a cure. We believe that the healing powers of art, music, and love must never be underestimated and should be an essential part of everyone’s long-term treatment plan.

An Excerpt from “The Hills are Alive”:

There are hills.

And then, there are HILLS.

Sometimes, it’s a benign bump.

Other times, it’s a rocky hot mountain climb,

but there is always an exquisite pink climax,

and a lofty downside.

Part joy and part grief,

opposite and attractive,

a perpetual random act of kindness

to the oglers, the fashion designers,

and the really tight huggers.

The mere sight of one

has been scientifically proven

to lengthen a man’s life.

Yet, somewhere between bumblebee sting

and asymmetrical standing ovation,

it stopped being okay to go topless,

in a wading pool,

in my own backyard.

The larger they grew,

the more infrequent and indecent

their exposures became.

I quickly learned that after giving up 2nd base,

the focus would always be home plate.

Just another embarrassing stain,

my mother said wouldn’t

come out in the delicate-cycle.

Contact Raundi and Deanne at http://www.theloveofwords.com and facebook.com/theloveofwords.

What good is our spontaneous paradise if we live pre-programmed by stereotypes, prescribed gender roles, archaic cultural norms rooted in chauvinism, barbarism?

How can we act freely if our social script is a doggerel of self-centered consumer messages, pretend political platitudes, a vacuum of sympathies, rampant mistranslations of what-can-you-name — in short, dominated by a dialogue of cliché consciousness?

This time-sensitive venture easily weaves cotton fibers with social concerns. Each week, Sevenly reveals a new, visually bold look that benefits an organization or cause of compassion. Fitted girlie tees, V-necks, old school shirts, and hoodies all don the design for just a week—hence the company name.

New apparel goes up Monday morning, and at the end of the week the proceeds are forwarded on.

Charities that have benefits from Sevenly’s generosity include Destiny Rescue, Laura’s House, and Autism Speaks. At a little more than 1 year old, the company, formed in June 2011, has generated nearly $1.5 million for charities to date.

Sevenly should definitely be an added stop on the shopping list. Let it blend the modern holiday season’s fibers, instead of letting them fray more in another year of culture tug-o-war.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for:

…a complete cessation of hostilities around the world.

…people everywhere to observe a minute of silence, at noon local time, to honour the victims – those who have lost their lives, and those who survived but must now cope with trauma and pain.

In solidarity with the spirit of peace, and recognizing the roots of dirtcakes’ mission to explore themes suggested by the UN Millennium Goals to eradicate extreme poverty, Catherine Keefe, Founding and Managing Editor has created a mash-up of prose and poetry lines taken from the first three issues and she’ll perform these during the “10 at the Top” series on Fri. at 4 p.m., and Sat. at 3 p.m.

We’re also packaging our first three issues together into a beautiful little bundle of fine art and letters for one price of $20.  Find me at the festival and I’ll hand you a peace package.  If you can’t make it to Orange this weekend, drop me a line and we’ll work out mailing details.

Peace
~ The Editors

“A Conversation with Reverend Nancy Brink” not only relates to our newest dirtcakes issue, but also hits on hot-button themes of this election season.  We’re also pleased to introduce Michael Boone, the interviewer, an emerging voice in social justice.

_______________________________________________________________________

“A Conversation with Reverend Nancy Brink” by Michael Boone

As someone who is gay and atheist, I often times struggle to understand how someone of the LGBT community can follow a religion that so often oppresses and ostracizes people of that identity.  Reverend Nancy Brink symbolizes the face of a religious LGBT person. She’s outspoken about her lesbian identity, holding hands with her wife in public, and clearly she’s outspoken about her faith as well, serving several churches in her lifetime. An ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Nancy is also the director of church relations at Chapman University. 

It took Reverend Nancy Brink until she was into her early 30s to finally understand what love songs were all about.  She was married to a man, but falling in love with a woman.

When Brink married her fiancé at the age 20, a tragic event had happened 3 months earlier: her mother died of breast cancer. As she was dealing with this loss, yet another unexpected situation crossed her path: she discovered her father was gay.  Luckily, Brink had the privilege of attending seminary in 1976 right on the heels of the American Psychological Association removing homosexuality from the category of “mental illness.” She used her time in seminary to try and figure out everything she possibly could find in the Bible regarding gay and lesbian identity. As she was studying, she realized that perhaps she wasn’t straight either.

When Brink was ordained in her denomination, Disciples of Christ, she was in the first wave of women who wanted to be preachers. There was unemployment and underemployment of women trying to enter ministry. By the time Brink decided to divorce her husband in 1987, the church’s discomfort with women as pastors was beginning to calm down, and the focus transferred to the issue of LGBT persons being ministers, which was particularly prominent due to the AIDS crisis. After her divorce, Brink came out to herself as a lesbian. She moved to Nebraska in the late 80s, and lived with her partner. They spent the next 7 years “closeted,” allowing Brink to spend time working on her sense of self.  She eventually found her own voice. 

The driving force for her to come out publicly was that she and her partner wanted to adopt a child. In fact, they decided to be the first couple to challenge the state of Nebraska in terms of adoption issues because Nebraska, like many other states, only allows one mother of any child. However, her agency’s lawyer determined that the agency would have to pull the child out of their home and put her in foster care while the case was being heard. Nancy refused and instead gave her daughter her own last name while her partner held the title of legal parent.

The two women eventually split.  Brink and her current partner also challenged the law as plaintiffs against the state of Nebraska and its Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) law. It was the only case against DOMA that was tried in the federal courts before the well-known case in California.  They won in U.S. district court, which is referenced in the California case; however they lost in the Eighth Circuit.  

I approached Brink in April 2012 to explore the intersection between her faith and her lesbian identity.

Nancy Brink

Boone: Were your parents religious? Did this affect your childhood?

Brink: Oh, they were very religious. My father was also an ordained minister, so I was what you would call a “preacher’s kid.”  I served all my congregations while growing up. I loved my time with my church and being involved in youth group – it was a really positive place for me growing up. When I attended my university, I originally was going to be a theater major, dropped that and went to psychology, and ended up in the religion department.

Boone: What is your faith like?

Brink: The Disciples of Christ? One thing you should know is that we’re not literalists. We do not think every word of the Bible is written in the hand of God. Instead we look at the context of the time it was written in and assess accordingly, much like if you were to read Shakespeare.

Boone: Anything else?

Brink: When I was growing up, the Disciples of Christ was about ecumenism – many different Christian groups finding a way to work together. Now, it has expanded to understand the interfaith path, including religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

Boone: Did you ever question your faith?

Brink: My understanding of God has changed.

Boone: How so?

Brink: I no longer think of God as a…it’s hard to find words for it…as a being. Now, what God means to me is the force for life, for love, for creativity, for personal growth and information. For me to be a person of that faith is to choose to abide to that kind of love and spirit. It’s not about worshipping God; it’s more about giving God more room to expand within me. To me, Jesus didn’t come asking us to worship him, he came to introduce us to (and he talked about it in scriptures) an ethical life, but even more about building justice and peace wherever you can and however you’re given to do that.  Being a part of the queer community made me a stronger Church leader because I really know what it’s like to be on the outside and to need an authentic, loving and justice-making community. Being LGBT gives us a lens that is needed and helpful.

And you know, there are a lot of people in religion thinking like this, but just don’t have that media microphone. Since the rise of the 24 hour news cycle, media loves to put competing voices, side by side, to yell at each other. For instance, my office brought in a speaker last year, a retired Episcopal Church bishop, and one of the leaders to first ordain LGBT people in his tradition. Bishop Spong very often was asked to debate Jerry Falwell, and other religious right-winged people. A few years ago, the bishop made a very public statement that he will no longer do that, go on TV, because he does not want to give the other side the airtime for something absolutely wrong. For him, the debate is over.

Boone: Do you feel Christian groups were more anti-LGBT in your time?

Brink: I’ve seen a huge change, and I feel like we hit the tipping point. I think it’s all over but the shouting in this country. Even Evangelical Christians are watching young people in their churches saying “you’re nuts.” And then there are the scandals like Ted Haggard, who are making anti-gay teachings even more unbelievable to people. Early on, it just wasn’t talked about, or it was considered a sickness.

Boone: Did you feel that it was harder for you to come out because of your faith?

Brink: I felt it was harder to come out because of my job. I think my faith makes it easier for me to come out. If Jesus is about loving your neighbor and loving yourself, then nothing should be more important.

Boone: Could you elaborate why it was hard to come out because of your job?

Brink: It was hard to come out because there’s this huge debate that is a church dividing issue. I watched the Catholic Church subtlety and sometimes not so subtlety pin pedophile scandals on gay priests. I was nervous I would lose my job and I loved serving a church and I was pretty darn good at it.

Boone: What drove you to become a minister?

Brink: My experience growing up and taking a hard look at my strengths (relational, public speaking, love God, believe that change is possible in life). Ministry fits my gifts.

Boone: Did you come out to your parents? How do they feel about you being LGBT and a minister?

Brink: I did not come out to my mother. I didn’t have the luxury because I didn’t come out to myself before she died. When my dad found out, he was shocked. He tried to change his orientation in the 50s through therapy. He was terrified that my brothers would be gay, but it never crossed his mind that I would be lesbian – not once. But he got over it very quickly.

Boone: How is your relationship with your father now?

Brink: It’s really, really strong. If he needs perpetual care, we would love for him to come live with us. My wife’s father died while she was still in utero, and so she feels like she got a dad for the first time in her life in marrying me.

Boone: Is your child religious at all?

Brink: She was very bonded with the church that I served and was really angry when I left. Of course she’s in a household where it’s really ok to question her faith. She goes to church with us, and tries to act like it’s awful, but she usually leaves with a great, big smile on her face. My prediction is that she will go back to her roots (she’s Vietnamese) and explore Buddhism – just my gut feeling. And that would be ok with me.

Boone: Did you ever experience negative feedback from religious people for being LGBT?

Brink: Mmhmm. I have received lots of hate mail. Nebraska is not far from Kansas, so Fred Phelps and his “God Hates Fags” crew often came through town. My daughter, a couple years ago, googled my name and found a site in which people were praying for my former church and my soul because I was leading them to hell.

Let me tell you a story. The day I came out to my congregation, one of the elderly women of my church who I adored, left crying – her name’s Millie. The next morning I woke up, and I kept feeling this nudge to call Millie, so I did. She answered, “Nancy?! You’re calling me?”  And I said yes. “Oh Nancy, I love you Nancy!” And I burst into tears.

She heard my crying and said “Are you crying? Why don’t you come over?” So I took a shower and a little over an hour I’m at her door. She sits me down at the pink linoleum table and pulled out some of her famous cinnamon rolls and a hot pot of coffee. She didn’t really want to talk about it, but she had been praying about it. And that morning, she had awakened, and said “I have seen the Holy Spirit in you, and the Holy Spirit does not lie.” For her, it was about a type of “heart wisdom” within her. She could tell that I was coming from a place of love and authenticity.

Six weeks later, she had a heart attack, and we stood around her bed and sang to her as she passed away. I’m so grateful we were in a good place together before she died.

Boone: Did you ever experience negative feedback from LGBT people for being religious?

Brink: Mmhmm! I think there has been some resistance here from this campus. It hasn’t hurt my feelings but I know it’s there and I understand why. And it comes from students who have been wounded by the church or by very religious people. But I try to drop everything when somebody is in a crisis, or just wants to talk.

Boone: How often do you feel like your two identities (being LGBT and religious) collide with each other?

Brink: I don’t think they collide at all. That’s what I worked on in my studies at seminary – I made peace with that. Theology and biblical studies are no different than any other study – it’s always evolving. My father and I keep saying how blessed we are for living in such interesting times. I think there are a lot of values in common. In socially active LGBT communities, there’s values of inclusiveness, passion and community, justice – wow, those sound pretty Jesus to me!

Boone: Do you think it’s understandable that a lot of LGBT are atheist?

Brink: Yes. And I’m not one that thinks atheists are lost. I will talk about my faith, but I only seek to nurture someone in that faith if they show an interest in it. To me, it’s about respecting each person’s walk.

Boone: Do you think that there will ever be a time when there’s unity between Christianity and LGBT?

Brink: I think there is increasing unity. Boy, it is different now than it was in the 80s. The church I joined 2 years ago maybe was 10% LGBT on a Sunday morning – now it’s more like 35%. Increasingly, straight people dislike homophobic teaching that puts down their brother, co-worker, or best friend. They will want to be in church with all kinds of people.

Boone: Thank you for your time and thank you for sharing all your stories!

Brink: No problem!

_______________________________________________________

Michael Boone is a student at Chapman University, aiming for a Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences. Although his emphasis is on human biology, Michael also is passionate about studying humans through a different lens.

Since his college career began, Michael has had strong ties with the social justice community, a community that explores and questions why our society functions the way it does. They do not take and appropriate everything that our society tells us. On the contrary, they challenge it. They deconstruct it. Why does our culture assume everyone is straight? Why is religion such a powerful force? Why are there unofficial regulations of how men and women are supposed to dress and behave?

Michael loves to explore the different identities that define us, such as race, gender, sexuality, and more. His dream is for a world in which people can embrace and take pride in their various identities without the discrimination and unjust punishment that some of these identities receive.