See Kitt’s National Coming Out Day Video

 My video is included in a patchwork of video responses compiled by the Human Rights Campaign for National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11.  You can watch my personal coming-out story in the one-minute video by clicking the button in the middle of image above. Or visit HRC’s YouTube page to view it along with more than 30 other video responses.  “I dared to come out, and suddenly the world seemed much bigger and full of beautiful colors,” I say in the video as I step out of a real closet wearing a quilt of rainbows. “Telling the truth transformed my life. I’m free!” One viewer at YouTube left this comment on my video: “Oh this is a beautiful video. I’m glad you have been living in this colored world for many years. I have been for 6 months by now, and I’ll never regret to have came out. You’re so inspiring, thank you for that.”  My coming-out experience inspired me to write Hide and Speak: A Coming Out Guide. The book offers a powerful program of self-acceptance and appropriate disclosure for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people -- and anyone else with a story to tell. Hide and Speak tells positive ways to come out to yourself, create a circle of supporters and deal with family, job and school. Each chapter includes real-life examples and tested, highly effective exercises that I used in coming-out workshops nationwide. My goal is that readers will learn how to live proud, free and balanced, no matter what happens. Hide and Speak is not just about homosexuality. The book is useful for all people who struggle with secrets and their consequences. Originally published in 1991, Hide and Speak was recently updated and released by AndroGyne Press, a new queer studies press based in Berkeley, CA. The joy of coming out is what inspired me to write Hide and Speak. May you be blessed today by truth, joy and freedom. ___ This post is part of the LGBTQ Calendar series by Kittredge Cherry. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, events in LGBTQ history, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies. Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved. Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

What’s your vision?

JesusInLove.org is seeking your input on its new vision statement.

Your comments will guide the queer spirituality website in launching series of exciting new projects, including videos, image collections and daily meditations.

Please share your thoughts on the following draft statement:

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Overview:

JesusInLove.org promotes progressive spiritual arts for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and our allies. Open to all.

For home page:
JesusInLove.org is an online resource center for progressive spirituality with an emphasis on art and images. It was created by author Kittredge Cherry to foster spiritual growth and creative expression for queer people and our allies. Centered in Christ, we seek interfaith understanding and the freedom to imagine and experience God in new ways.

For “about” page:
Re-envisioning God is one of the most important spiritual tasks of our time. Jesus In Love is a network of people and websites that affirm gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies by displaying and discussing progressive spiritual art and issues.

Jesus In Love has expanded to address all forms of progressive spirituality. We still honor Christ, but now we seek interfaith connections. We are still grounded in queer experience, but we actively welcome all people. We continue to promote books and writers, but we now give strong support to art, artists and art lovers of all kinds.

JesusInLove.org was founded by lesbian Christian author Kittredge Cherry in 2005 as the first website devoted to the gay Jesus and the queer Christ. She called it Jesus in Love because she was motivated by the life of Jesus—who was in love, in every sense of the term.

Our logo shows the face of Jesus inside a pink triangle, the symbol imposed on gay prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Inside the pink triangle, Jesus joins in transforming queer suffering into power.

JesusInLove.org receives thousands of visitors per year. It cosponsored the first National Festival of Progressive Spiritual Art in 2007.

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The statement will be revised based on comments received. So tell us what you think. Or respond to the following questions:

What would you add, delete or change from the JesusInLove.org vision?

What do you like about visiting JesusInLove.org?

Please post your comments here or email kitt@JesusInLove.org. Excerpts from your emails may be posted on the blog to facilitate discussion.

The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Thank you for sharing your vision and bringing new life to the Web and the world.

No more starving artists

Jerry Yoshitomi teaches artists to be entrepreneurs at the Arroyo Artists Collective

A common complaint from artists is that progressive spiritual art attracts big crowds, but doesn’t sell well.

Painting the queer Christ is considered the biggest financial sacrifice of all.

I challenged the popular wisdom and found inspiring new solutions by attending an “Entrepreneurial Artists” workshop by arts consultant Jerry Yoshitomi last week.

Yoshitomi believes that all art adds value to society, so he teaches people like me how to make their artistic visions real by increasing income and audience.

He got the whole group of 30 people to brainstorm about how to transform this very blog into a powerhouse that supports progressive spiritual art globally by building on the successes of my website JesusInLove.org, my book Art That Dares and the National Festival of Progressive Spiritual Art.

I told the group my dream of sponsoring a big progressive spiritual art contest with a prestigious judge and winners displayed online, in a book, and in a U.S. gallery tour—and they can up with practical steps to make it happen.

“You’ve got the vision and you’re doing the work. Money is the easy part,” Yoshitomi said at one point.

It was a personal breakthrough for me.

“Make it easy for people to give you money,” Yoshitomi advised.

He recommended using chipin.com. On that note, I set up a chipin.com account (see below) to collect funds for a huge mailing that we are doing to 800 art and religion professors who expressed interest in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. AndroGyne Press designed the flier and is sharing the costs, but my portion is $450. Please use the chipin.com button below to help with a donation.

The workshop was sponsored by the Arroyo Arts Collective, an amazing arts group that happens to be based in my part of Los Angeles. A group of strangers became a mini-community at the workshop as we took turns brainstorming about each other’s art projects. We generated enormous enthusiasm as we encouraged each other in all our diversity-- a flamenco dance teacher, a woman who does cigar art, a painter of family portraits, a man who wants to do animated films, and of course me, the lesbian Christian author.

Before the workshop I was planning and dreaming (and sometimes worrying) about how get the resources to go to the next level with Jesus in Love. I believe that re-envisioning the sacred is one of the most important tasks of our time. I had faith that God’s abundance was out there with more than enough funds to meet the need, but I couldn’t imagine how to access it.

The key is to get your audience to think about and express the value that your art adds to their lives. Let me say here and now that the Entrepreneurial Artists workshop gave me motivation and practical steps to make my artistic dreams come true. Some attendees grumbled that Yoshitomi’s approach minimized the purpose of art by packaging it like detergent to sell to a specific demographic. Perhaps this proves his point that audiences are not uniform, but are comprised of subsets of people with differing needs.

Yoshitomi is lead consultant on information and network strategies for LINC (Leveraging Investments in Creativity), a national initiative to improve the lives of artists. In the workshop he taught marketing theory with examples from museums and corporations. But his greatest gift was creating a sense of community and vision that empowered us to see that the resources we need are already within our grasp.

I’ll be presenting more specific ways to join the vision of promoting spiritual progressive art in the future.

Censored Christ Mother appears at last

Christ Mother by Janet McKenzie © 2002

Artist Janet McKenzie is world-famous for her sacred art, but her most daring female Christ has rarely been seen until now.

McKenzie’s controversial Christ Mother painting is included in my new book Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More. The book contains color images by 11 contemporary artists from the U.S. and Europe.

McKenzie is best known for painting the androgynous black Jesus of the People, which appears on the cover of Art That Dares. The famous painting was chosen by Sister Wendy of PBS to represent Christ in a contest sponsored by the National Catholic Reporter. The resulting controversy brought bomb threats and hate mail to McKenzie’s secluded Vermont studio.

Undaunted, McKenzie followed up with an even more challenging work—a nude female Christ that has largely been censored by the gatekeepers who decide what gets exhibited. Called Christ Mother, it is a towering, gritty, and majestic painting of a naked woman bound in a crucifixion pose.

“Sometimes ‘controversial’ art simply comes forward, like it or not. It is like a scream; you are doing it before you realize you are,” McKenzie recalls in Art That Dares.

In the book, McKenzie describes the opposition to Christ Mother and explains why she painted a female Christ. “She is the feminine aspect of Jesus, mother to us all, and to my mind, she is undeniable,” McKenzie says. “Christ Mother is in the act of being crucified, yet she stands with strength, in acceptance, although bound. Her body glows with life but also reflects the coming hereafter.”

I interviewed McKenzie from afar for Art That Dares, but I didn’t get to meet her in person until we both converged on Taos recently for the National Festival of Progressive Spiritual Art, where McKenzie was one of the top-selling artists.

I was touched by McKenzie’s sincere joy at seeing me with my mother in Taos. A highlight of our time together was when she took a photo of me with my mom. McKenzie is known for paying homage to the female figure, a commitment that she attributes to the loss of her mother and grandmother at an early point in her life.

Other female Christ figures in Art That Dares include Edwina Sandys’ famous bronze crucifix Christa.

I believe that re-envisioning Christ is one of the most important tasks of our time. The new images are much needed now because Christian rhetoric is used to justify discrimination against women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) people.

In Art That Dares, the book’s 11 artists all tell the stories behind their controversial images, including censorship, violence, death threats and vandalism that destroyed their work. A lively introduction puts the art into political and historical context, exploring issues of blasphemy and artistic freedom.

Author Kittredge Cherry, left, with artist Janet McKenzie

What is queer spirituality?

I created this blog as a place to discuss queer spirituality and the arts. I realized that more explanation was needed when I got an email from a straight ally saying:

I understand, a little bit, the current need to have, for instance, “queer spirituality.” But I want to say that every time I am faced with that “Keep out” sign (your blog's description means it's not for me), it makes it harder to feel like I can be in loving community with gays.

This comment inspired me to add the phrase “open to all” to this blog’s header.

Queer spirituality is indeed the focus of this blog and my website JesusInLove.org, but I always intended to welcome ANYONE to engage the subject, including straight people. It’s sort of like how I as a white woman was interested in African American literature and took a class where I was welcome to read and discuss it. Actually the word "queer" is considered to be relatively inclusive.

While “lesbian” and “gay” have specific meanings, almost anyone who feels different can identify as “queer.” The Wikipedia has an elaborate definition of queer that includes “asexual and autosexual people as well as well as gender normative heterosexuals whose sexual orientations or activities place them outside the heterosexual-defined mainstream.”

The use of the word “queer” has changed a lot in recent years, as I wrote in my coming-out guide, Hide and Speak. Here’s an excerpt:

The word “queer,” once a terrible insult, was reclaimed for popular use. The process began in 1990 when activists founded Queer Nation to force people to confront their homophobia. The group caused controversy even in the LGBT community by using such radical tactics as “outing” closeted public figures, staging public kiss-ins and using the in-your-face slogan, “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” Queers became so acceptable that universities started offering degrees in the new field of “queer studies.” In 2003, the term got the ultimate stamp of mass-market approval when a TV series called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” became a surprise hit.

One thing that’s queer about queer spirituality is that it defies definition. Spirituality is about personal faith, in contrast to the more institutional approach of religion. In my view, queer spirituality is an alternative to mainstream religion, rooted in the personal experience of LGBT people and anyone else who identifies as “queer.”

Anyway, you don’t even have to feel queer at all to read and make comments on this blog.