Writings

Twenty years ago this month, I was a bright eyed 21 year old gay “boy” who was alive and excited about life. I was volunteering for the local AIDS project back home in New Haven- working to get “safer sex” information out to my peers. I had just finished EMT school, and was working in a profession that I loved. I was fair haired, fair skinned, an out of the closet man in uniform, who after long last could go into the gay bars in town. Life was colorful, vibrant and alive.

I was dating a guy who I liked, and he and I, along with some other friends, decided to go to Washington, DC for a weekend to see the AIDS Quilt, and just be young, gay, and on a road trip to our Nation’s Capitol. None of us had been to Washington before, so we were expecting streets lined with cherry trees, grand marble edifices and flags; triumphant salutations to all the wonder, freedom, and safety our Nation represented to us. The promises of prior generations fulfilled- we were the benefactors to the sacrifices these marble testaments represented.

The AIDS epidemic for my friends and I was an abstract concept. Sure, we knew people who were HIV+ through volunteering at the AIDS Project, but they were not like us. We were young, white, smart, and affluent, and AIDS doesn’t happen to people like us. I knew I would never get HIV because I was a highly trained medical “professional,” and knew how to protect myself. AIDS would never affect me or my friends.

We knew that those who got AIDS were the older guys; the “ferns”; guys in the porn theatre on Woodward Avenue, in East Rock Park, and down at Long Wharf. Junkies and prostitutes we were not, so we would be ok.

We were invincible.

Our visit to the AIDS quilt began to change that in all of us.

We discovered that people who died of AIDS were affluent, white, smart, college educated. They were, and continue to be, artists, doctors, lawyers, and even EMT’s. They are men, women, gay and straight. They were black and white, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The fabric of the AIDS Quilt represented, in a very real way, the fabric of humanity. Cut from different swatches and bolts, they were sewn together to become a seamless fabric.

Then AIDS hit home.

About 3 weeks after our trip, one of my group of friends tested positive for HIV. There we all were – facing this disease straight in the face. Our friend who was college educated, white, and employed, was HIV+. His health insurance didn’t cover his HIV meds, so we each chipped in every month to cover his medication bill, which was $500 a month.

The party was over for this 21 year old.

At 21, I was facing the disease, and watching a friend die – very quickly, and there was nothing I could do. I saved lives every day in my job. Shootings, heart attacks, strokes, diabetic comas – I overcame them all. But not this- I could honestly say there were people alive purely because of my skill and intervention, but I could do nothing for my friend. I felt more helpless then than I ever had at that point in my life.

I couldn’t even escape it in my job. One day, I was called upon to transport a man to Hospice. Turned out, it was a school-mate – we graduated from high school together. He was dying, and I was taking him to the last place he will ever live. He looked at me in the back of the ambulance, told me not touch him, as he didn’t want to make me sick. I stroked his hair, held his hand, and we both cried the entire ride. He died 3 days later – he was 22. To this day, I can close my eyes, and see his tears – and his pulling away from me as I tried to wipe them from his cheeks because he wanted to protect me.

About a year or so later, I recall my mom commenting to me that I went to a lot of wakes and funerals. It was true. My friend from the trip to DC had passed away 11 months after his diagnosis. I watched the gay community slip away and die; emaciated not only by the disease, but by prejudice, apathy, and neglect.

I fell in love with Washington, DC on that trip in 1987, and knew then that one day, I would make my home here, something I accomplished in 1999.

So – fast forward from 1987 to 2007. I am not as fair haired or fair skinned. My uniform has changed, and it takes me a bit longer to be “vibrant.” Most certainly, the moniker “boy” no longer applies.

I have very close friends who are HIV+ and living with AIDS. My adopted home town of Washington, DC has the highest HIV infection rate of any city in the United States, so knowing someone who is HIV+ or living with AIDS is commonplace.

And today, I ask myself, where is the quilt?

The generation behind mine has that same invincible attitude that I had at 21, when I thought that HIV and AIDS was a diseases confined to the ‘lesser’. Now, the 20 something’s aren’t so concerned it seems with getting infected. I have heard more than once, “getting HIV is like being diabetic- you can manage it- it’s no longer a death sentence.” We have terms in our vocabulary like “bug chaser,” “bug parties,” and barebacking. These same people would no sooner run out and voluntarily contract cancer, asthma, or diabetes, but they are actively searching for people to infect them with HIV. This self destructive behavior saddens me.

Where is the quilt?

Each panel of the AIDS Quilt is decorated to represent the person memorialized. Quite on purpose, each panel of the AIDS Quilt is cut to the length and width of a casket.

For me and my friends, the quilt transmitted a message.

It was an amazing thing to see all these casket length quilt panels covering the grounds of our Nation’s Capitol. It took every inch of grass between the White House and the Washington Monument to display them all. I understand that there are so many panels now, that you cannot display them all in one place anymore.

I remember looking at the White House while viewing the quilt, and the drapes were drawn. I thought it odd- and I realized sometime later that it was a metaphoric moment- representing how the Regan administration treated the disease and those afflicted. Most certainly, 20 years later, those drapes are drawn yet again by an administration that feels AIDS is relegated to the ‘lesser’- and to those ‘deserving.’

The newer generation needs a quilt experience. HIV and AIDS has become an abstract to those in their 20’s and younger, just as it was when I was 21.

In this Chris-Crocker-I-am-invincible generation- a generation that moves so quickly down their path that they miss the beauty of life, how do we get the message of the Quilt to them? How do we slow them down long enough to recognize their inner and outer beauty, and that their responsibility is to not live in the moment, but to protect that beauty given to them by God?

I wish I knew.

Perhaps they need to see the Quilt. Beautiful, majestic, and quiet. Both ominous and warm in what it manages to simultaneously represent- death and love.

Perhaps they all need to have an ambulance experience. To look down on that stretcher, and see themselves looking back up, might just get their attention before it’s too late. I know it saved me… perhaps it will save them.

In the summer of 1999, I gave a speech to the 500 volunteers who were working on the AIDS Ride, of which I was a director. Of those 500 people, there were two who are still very important to me, my good friend and former partner, and my next youngest brother. It was an inspirational speech, most of which I don’t remember. I do remember the end of it. I ended by saying, “I hope that someday, my younger brothers and my partner will know a world that has overcome AIDS.”

I still have that hope- but it is for the younger generations- most especially my nieces Samantha and Jessica.

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August 28, 2007

Letter to the Parole Board of the State of Texas

Category: Offiical Letters. Posted by rev.michael at 11:35 am.

There is a man in Texas who in 1991, brutally murdered a 27 year old gay man, at random, on the streets of Houston. He was sentenced in 1992 to 45 years in prison, and is now up for parole after serving just 15 years.

His mom is asking people to write the parole board and help keep this killer in jail. On behalf of my clergy and parish in Texas, I sent the following - please feel free to copy and send with your signature.

August 28, 2007

Mr. Rissie Owens
Presiding Officer
Texas Board of Parole and Pardons
PO Box 13401
Austin, TX. 78711-3401

Regarding: Jon Christopher Buice, TDCJ # 630496

Dear Mr. Owens:

It is my understanding that the above named individual, Jon Christopher Buice, TDCJ# 630496, is coming before your board in the near future to be considered for parole, after serving fifteen years of a forty five year sentence on the charge of murder in the first degree. I am writing to you today to oppose his parole for the good of the people of the great State of Texas.

Mr. Buice’s victim, the late Paul Broussard, was targeted because he was a homosexual. Murder, any murder, is a heinous act in the eyes of God, violating the most basic tenant of Christianity, “You shall not kill[1].”

From all accounts, Mr. Buice and Mr. Broussard did not know one another, had never met or interacted. Given the fact that Mr. Buice traveled some 215 miles from their home town to Houston with the intent to harass homosexuals, and he made this trip after packing boards with nails protruding from them, and a buck knife with a blade long enough to penetrate Mr. Broussard’s chest almost six full inches, lacerating the arteries deep within his chest at the heart – it is obvious this crime was pre-meditated, planned, and subsequently executed according to this plan.

If there can be differing levels of violence, if acts can be more heinous than the other, I would submit that a random killing such as this is perhaps one of the vilest.

To select someone at random, on the street, based solely on the color of their skin, who they choose to love, their clothing, their carriage, demeanor, beliefs or the company they keep is contradictory to the safety and well being of Texans, and Americans. The idea that it is acceptable to select someone and take their life at random flies directly in the face of the very reasons this great nation was founded- that we each have the chance to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Mr. Broussard had the opportunities promised all Texans robbed from him directly as a result of the ignorance and prejudices of Mr. Buice. He was robbed of the chance to watch his mother become a great lady of Texas as she grows old; he was robbed of the chance to watch his brother David and sister Michele grow, be happy, and have a family; he was robbed of the chance to be an uncle to his siblings’ children, and he was robbed of the chance to love.

I urge you not to give that which Mr. Broussard was robbed of back to Mr. Buice, the very man who robbed it from him

Mr. Owens, I don’t write this letter lightly. I myself am a chaplain to the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, so I am aware that the corrections system can and does rehabilitate people every day.

I also don’t write this letter lightly as a pastor, because I spend a great deal of time preaching on Christ’s gift of forgiveness and love.

I do however feel that even though we as Christians are obligated to forgive “those who trespass against us,[2]” we as Christians, and indeed as Americans, need to also hold accountable those who are a danger and hazard to society.

Mr. Buice must continue to atone for his sin and crime of murder, and it is your board’s obligation to see that he does so for a period of time greater than the scant fifteen years he has spent in your department’s custody.

I urge you to not only deny his current petition for release, but to exercise your authority to set the five year time frame before he can re-apply for another parole hearing. It is my understanding that the request for the five year set-off is the wishes of Mr. Broussard’s family.

With every best wish for you and your department, I remain…

Yours in Christ Jesus,
/SIGNED/
The Most Reverend Michael V. Seneco, SPSA, DD, L.Th.
Presiding Archbishop

cc: The Honorable Rick Perry, Governor of the State of Texas
Mr. Stuart Jenkins, Director, TDCJ Parole Division
Mrs. Raven Kazen, Director, TDCJ Victim Services Division
Father Gary Majors, Pastor Divine Mercy Old Catholic Church – Dallas, TX
The Houston Chronicle
The Houston Herald

[1] Exodus 20:13
[2] Matthew 6:12

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June 17, 2007

Audio Homilies

Category: Audio Homilies. Posted by rev.michael at 3:26 pm.

As I drag my parish, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century - we are now recording the weekly homilies and posting them to the parish website. Today is the first Sunday we have done that.

I plan on posting only the homilies I give to my personal website. Each recording posted here will have the Gospel reading, and then my homily.

So, with that, here is my homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary time.
Archbishop Seneco’s Homily delivered at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel OC Church 061707

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August 9, 2006

Stay Safe… Always…

Category: Words of Wisdom. Posted by rev.michael at 4:22 pm.

These are the last words a mother in Frederick County Maryland said to her son, a 22 year old Lance Corporal in the US Marines. Four days after that conversation, the Lance Corporal was mortally wounded while on duty in Anbar, Iraq.

The story of this 22 year old Marine is one you would expect, and have probably heard in these last few years in news accounts of the death of service members. He was good in school, respectful and helpful to others, had high marks, was competitive, played football, and proud to serve his country.

He was less then 30 days from returning home to his family, his younger brother, and the pursuits that any 22 year old should be concerned about: a car, a girl, and just being a young adult with his whole life in front of him.

I can’t imagine what that must be like. I can’t imagine my mother getting such a call, or a knock at the door- that mere thought brings tears to my eyes.

I have a huge amount respect for those that are willing to step up, take a weapon, and stand a post to protect us. I have a good friend who is currently serving in Iraq, and I pray every single day he returns home to us in the same condition he was when he left - alive.

I really feel that those who run this nation do not share the level of respect that I do for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that they send off to war, a decision seemingly made while riding on some sort of testosterone induced high, after a cigar, and a nice brandy at the Army-Navy Club on Farragut Square.

What really bothers me about not only this man’s death, and my friend being in considerably more danger than most of us will ever know, is that our Government is treating the gift of patriotic dedication that is represented in these men and women as some kind of dispoable commodity.

I have these images of those in power in this, the Federal City I live in, walking the hallowed marble halls, reciting that old ad campaign for Cheeto’s, “Go ahead, we will make more…” and that thought disgusts me.

The men and women in our Armed Forces should be considered our most precious national treasure. Not poets, actors, monuments, or things collected by the Smithsonian. I would trade every scrap of Marble in our monuments, every piece of art in every museum, and all the other ‘precious national treasures’ our government has amassed to get these men and women home– NOW.

Hell, I would send Sadam, the Talaban, the whoever-it-is-we-are-fighting steamed Maryland Crabs wrapped in the Constitution if it would get our men and women back without any more death.

Nothing is more precious than life. Life is a gift of the Creator; it is a gift bore out of love - love between two people and between God and His children. When someone gives the control of their life, their destiny, over to our nation to do with it as it seems fit, the Nation, our Nation, needs to do everything in it’s power to see that the gift so willingly given is used so very sparingly.

Somewhere, somehow, that has been forgotten. Perhaps that is the saddest part of this senseless, useless, wasteful war: the squandering of a freely given National Treasure… life.

We need to remind those in power to stop wasting this gift, and we need to do it now.

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April 10, 2006

The Box

Category: Homily. Posted by rev.michael at 6:34 pm.

The week between Palm Sunday and Easter is “Holy Week” where each day, the Catholic faithful remember the final days if Christ’s life, from his trimumphant entrance into Jerusalum on Palm Sunday, to his Glorious Passion and Ressurection.

At one point during Holy Week, it is traditional for preists to gather with their bishops and celebrate Crisim Mass, where the bishop consecrates the holy oils used in the administration of the sacraments by the priests of the diocese. This year, I presided at the Crisim Mass for the priests of the Emergent Catholic Church who are here in DC. This is my homily:

Everyone, it seems, wants to get out of the box.

Crawl out of the box, jump out of the box — or leap and spring out of the box. Walk around the box. Get away from the box. Think outside the box. Live outside the box. Stand on the box, look down on the box, and even kick the box.

Whatever! For some reason, we don’t want to live in the box, or stay in the box.

From corporate boardrooms to church offices, the talk is all about escaping the constraints of business-as-usual and to discover broader visions, fresh perspectives, new strategies and creative innovations.
A leader who can “think outside the box” is considered to be a priceless asset for any organization.

But what happens when you get too far outside the box?

In the endless rush to embrace new ideas, too many groups have forgotten who they are and what they are supposed to do. The November 2005 edition of Fast Company magazine offers us some cautionary tales about organizations that have lost touch with their core identity, and have suffered in the process.

Consider Volkswagen of America. It once produced efficient volks wagens, “people’s cars,” with plain interiors and simple mechanics. The Volkswagen Beetle was wildly popular in the decades after the Second World War, as millions of drivers fell in love with the car’s low price, high quality and affordable running costs.

But now, Volkswagen’s cars include a luxury sedan and an SUV.

And who has stepped into Volkswagen’s abandoned niche? BMW surprisingly enough; Its Mini Cooper is the Beetle of the new millennium — simple, solid and small.

The Roman Catholic Church started to think out-of-the-box when Pope John 23rd called the historic Second Vatican Council in the 60’s. They certainly climbed out of the box, didn’t they?? They climbed out of the box, recycled the old, and built a new box.
Then, they walked away from the box they built during Vatican II. And now, some 40 plus years later – they continue to wander in the dessert – ignoring the box they built.

What’s the lesson here?

Its okay to get outside the box, but don’t lose the box. The box is what got you here. And to help us remember who we are, perhaps we need to come crawling back to the box, climb in, close the lid, sit in the dark and — think inside the box for a while.

Groups need to identify the one thing they do best, and let that core ability guide their decision making. “Your next big thing should really be a new beginning,” writes Douglas Rushkoff in Fast Company, “a chance to do what you do, and do it incredibly well.”

It’s time for us as Catholic priests in the emergent churches to “get in the box,” get inside the church box. Time to do what Jesus wants us to do, and do it incredibly well. We are all poised, and prepared.

God has given us each unique skills to enter into direct, desperately needed ministries. Problem is, we spend so much time outside the box, doing what we want – that we aren’t sitting listening to hear what God wants.

On Ash Wednesday in March of 1962, Dom Phillip, a Carthusian monk from the Parkminster Charterhouse in Sussex England, while speaking about his cell, basically the box he lived in, said that, “At Parkminster, I can pull the cowl of my habit over my head and almost hear the whispers of God. ”

I think we can all use some time in the box, listening to the whispers of God.

The first letter of John makes clear that our core competency as Christians is to love one another. We see this love in what Jesus did for us, when he laid down his life for us, and we act on this knowledge when we “lay down our lives for one another. ”The sacrificial love of Jesus is more than a nice idea and a noble concept — it is, in fact, a pattern of behavior that is supposed to be displayed by us in action. “How does God’s love abide in anyone,” asks John, “who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? ”

Short answer: It doesn’t. God’s love lives in those who see a need, and respond with help.

Clarence Jordan captured the concreteness of this everyday love and compassionate assistance when he translated in his Cotton Patch Version of 1 John 3:18 back in 1973: “My little ones, let’s not talk about love. Let’s not sing about love. Let’s put love into action and make it real.”

Making it real! Putting it into action! That’s what John is talking about when he challenges us to love one another.
So why is it so hard for us to concentrate on this core Christian competency?

• Most of us find it easier to argue with our political opponents than to love them;

• Most of us are more comfortable taking a stand on abortion than taking care of a woman with a problem pregnancy;

• Most of us would rather write a check to a homeless shelter than spend an evening providing job counseling to a person on the streets;

• Most of us would prefer to make pronouncements on homosexuality than to do the hard work of figuring out what it means to be gay and Christian;

• Most of us find it so much simpler to define our religious duty in terms of attending church and making offerings, rather than doing the complicated and challenging work of feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned;

Basically, we’re lazy…

No kidding. We take a fairly easy path when we get outside the Christian box and put our energy into fighting about politics, abortion, homelessness and homosexuality.

These topics give us the comfort of a black-and-white view of the world, one in which there are good guys and bad guys, angels and demons, winners and losers.

But Jesus was never about crushing his opponents. Instead, he challenged his followers by saying, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ”

If we are going to get back in the Christian box, we are going to have to take the difficult path of putting love into action and making it real. It is much harder to love one another than it is to fight one another.

This is the message of this Holy Week for priests in the Emergent Catholic Church! We need to take church, and make it real!

The key to rising to this challenge is to realize that love comes from God, not from human beings. John tells us that we know love because Jesus laid down his life for us — that’s a truly divine accomplishment . He reminds us that God’s love lives in us — that’s a sacred spark inside us . He calls us to believe in the name of God’s Son Jesus — that’s a life-giving link with the Lord . And he assures us that God abides in us, by the Holy Spirit that he has given us — that’s a holy habitation .

If we succeed in loving one another, the credit actually belongs to God. Not to us. Any love we show is a sign and a signal that God’s love is working through us.

In a sense, this lets us off the hook. We can say to critics, “Hey, don’t blame us — blame God!” We’re not required to figure out precise and perfect positions on all the tough issues of the day, as long as we love one another. John doesn’t say that we will be blessed by God once we achieve a political victory or articulate a flawless moral position. No, he says that we will receive from God whatever we ask “because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. ”

His commandment: Believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another .

What pleases him: laying down our lives for one another .

That’s the church box. No more, no less. It’s time to crawl back in it.

Our world is in desperate need of a church that puts love into action and makes it real. Like customers looking for a good burger or a simple, solid, small car, there are people all around us who are searching desperately for a community that actually practices what it preaches.

If you are going to build a box… that is the box your priesthood is called to build. Not an elaborate box… not a box with bells and whistles… people just want a good burger! They want a reliable car…

Over 100 years ago, the Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard made the point that Jesus was looking for followers, not admirers — he wanted people who would walk with him, do his work, and serve in his name.

One of Kierkegaard’s own parables told of a man who was walking down a city street when he saw a big sign in a window that said, “Pants pressed here.” Delighted to see the sign, he went home and gathered up all of his wrinkled laundry. He carried it into the shop and put it on the counter.

“What are you doing?” the shopkeeper demanded.

“I brought my clothes here to be pressed,” said the man, “just like your sign said.”

“Oh, you’ve got it all wrong,” the owner said. “We don’t actually do that here. We’re in the business of making signs.” We don’t do these things, he was saying. We just talk about them.

And that, said Søren Kierkegaard, is often the problem in the church.

We advertise ourselves as a place that is showing Christ’s love and doing Christ’s work. But when people show up looking for real love and real Christian action, they don’t see it. “Oh, no, we don’t love people here. We just talk about loving people here.”

When we’re in the church box, or the Christ box, we do what Jesus wants us to do, and we do it incredibly well.

This means helping a brother or sister in need, and loving one another in truth and in action.

It means focusing on activities that really show the love of God to people who might be feeling quite unloved and unlovable.

Just as business leaders today need to get back in touch with the true value that they offer their customers, we members of the emergent church need to reconnect with the valuable gifts that we can offer the world around us.

If we are going to advertise God’s love, let’s actually practice God’s love. It’s time to return to the core competencies we have as Christians: the abilities to believe in Jesus Christ and love one another.

That’s a box we should stay in until we get it right.

And then — and this is another sermon — we might want to crawl out of the box and think about creative ways to do the loving.

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