In April of 2012 Columbia Theological Seminary Made a choice in their housing policy that would not allow for students in same sex committed partnerships/marriages to live in the married student housing at the seminary . With a growing population of homosexual students and allies of the LBGT community, the seminary w
as torn over the policy decision. People who fought for both sides were hurt and angry. Those who got the distion they wanted were treated as evil for standing beside there beliefs, and those who wanted to live with their family on campus were hurt and felt like outcasts. The community was broken. In response to these events I wrote this psalm and constructed a service for healing, where the students could clam there hurt and be bound together once again in the knowledge that God held us all in our struggles.
Holy God, you are the creator of all things,
You formed the earth as if it were clay,
You glazed the sunbeams to feed the earth,
You called the rains and baptized the ground once more.
Your created humans from that dust, breathing your life within us.
You knit every person together by your perfect hands.
O Lord, we deny the work of your hands by denying each other.
We have turned from your work to politics,
We cast sticks and stones at those you created that differ from us.
We see only difference, not the work of your hands.
We forget your words of loving as ourselves.
We push to the outside, so that we don’t have to see.
Parent of all, teach us your ways, guide our feet and teach us.
Help us to turn community into brotherhood.
Help us to be the Body that has different members
Help us to see your fingerprints upon the other.
Help us to love as you have called us to love.
Help us to pull-in those that have been pushed away.
Eternal God, You are good, just, and attentive to your people’s needs.
You alone can help transform us all.
You are the one creating a new kingdom.
We await the day where tears turn to dancing.
We rest in your Hope.
For you O God, are all we need.