A Heart Divided Finds New Path To Peace

Photo: Paul Harris
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SATURDAY AUGUST 23

Meg Britton has overturned her conventional life as a wife and mother to become a lesbian nun, writes Erin O'Dwyer.

Not so long ago, Sister Meg Britton was a married mother of three. She went to church, worked in volunteer Christian ministry and was studying at Bible college. She was, in the eyes of the church, a model Christian.

"I felt that I had to fly beneath the radar," she says of her old life. "You try to live your life and make it look as normal as possible. You have relations with the opposite sex and you keep your head down. No one knows the real you."

In her diary, Britton wrote of her "dark secret". As a little girl she played only with other girls and as a young woman became besotted with her female friends. But it was not until she joined the church as a teenager that she was told her feelings were "wrong".

"As Oscar Wilde said, it's the love that dare not speak its name," she says. "That's how you feel, especially in the church. I felt all right with myself all of my life. Then I started to hear this message that perhaps everything wasn't so right after all."

It took a nervous breakdown and a battle with depression for Britton to make her quantum leap. Today she lives in a lesbian relationship and is a novice nun in the progressive Reformed Catholic Church.



"My skin fits now," she says. "I know God loves me and there is no secret I can keep from Him."

Britton took her vows in the Reformed Catholic Church's order of St Benedict in February. Founded in 2000 by the Reverend Robert Allmen, a former Catholic priest, it is based in Columbus, Ohio, and has communities in 25 US states as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe, Mexico and Australia.

Led now by Bishop Phillip Zimmerman, the church follows Catholic doctrine but welcomes gays and lesbians. It also allows its clergy to be single, gay, married or divorced.

The Benedictines observe silence, charity and chastity. But Britton has declined to take the vow of chastity. Celibacy, she says, has failed the trad-itional Catholic Church and it is not something she feels called to do.

"It's easy to live if it's a personal choice but it's very difficult if it is imposed on you externally," she says. "We all know that human beings are weak and even the Bible says it's better to be married than burn with lust. They make allowances within our faith that you can be married or in a committed relationship, which I am."

Britton met her partner on the online dating site Gaydar Girls. But far from the raunchy culture the gay dating scene is known for, they had their first date at church. Since then, they have founded the St Flora Anglican Mission Parish on acreage in the Glasshouse Mountains.

The parish is little more than an hour's drive north-west of Brisbane but it might as well be a world away. Britton hopes the parish will grow into a day retreat for people looking for spiritual sanctuary.

"My partner supports me but she doesn't feel that she is called into the clergy," says Britton. "She has always said 'you're the pastor, I'm just the pastor's wife'."

Britton was in her early 40s before she found the courage to leave her 23-year marriage. Now 44, she remembers the moment she told her 17-year-old son.

"I'd been playing with the idea of coming out and I thought the easiest people [to tell] would be my kids," she says. "My son said: 'It's about time, Mum'. He had heard me get on my soapbox about discrimination against gays and he had put it all together."

Her daughters, now 17 and 19, were also proud. Only her husband had mixed reactions. Britton had confided in him three years into their marriage but he had struggled to know how to support her.

Britton recalls that he said: "Well what are you going to do about it? You're married to me now."

She says her parents had divorced when she was young. "I remember saying, 'I'm going to stay married, no matter what it takes'."

The turning point came when Britton's mother died. At about the same time, her marriage began to crumble and she sought counselling for depression. Suddenly she had to confront the lie of the life she had created.

"I remember sitting on a train on the way home from work and wanting to throw myself out the doors," she says. "That was how low I'd got. When I started to recover from the depression I started to think it's not tolerable to live this lie."

But it was not that easy. She left her marriage but could not reconcile her sexuality with her faith and eventually left the church too. This left an enormous gap in her life and she started binge eating - eventually hitting 120 kilograms.

"For a long time there was a huge part of me that was missing," she says, now back to 75 kilograms. "There was a hole inside of me but I didn't know what to fill it with. I started stuffing myself with doughnuts and cake."

It was about this time that Britton wrote about her struggle and posted the article on a website. A friend who saw it suggested she look into the Reformed Catholic Church.

"I had an online conversation with Bishop Zimmerman that lasted all night," she says. "The first thing he said was 'welcome home' and I just burst into tears."

Slowly, Britton became involved in the church again. She started a twice-weekly podcast, Rainbow Faith, which sends a selection of music and bible readings to subscribers in Australia, China, Singapore and the US.

"We don't hear from the ones in China much because they like the anonymity of the internet," she says. "But I know there are quite a few people who listen to the podcast but would never step into a church.

Last year, she established the St Flora Mission. It is one of only two Reformed Catholic Church communities in Australia - the other is in Brisbane - and is named after the patron saint of the abandoned.

Despite her vows, Britton is not certain she will remain a religious sister after her 12-month probation. Her first novel was released last month by the American gay and lesbian publishing house, Torquere Press. If successful, she says there are more stories to come.

"I've been a writer since I could pick up a pen," she says. "My grandfather was Welsh and both he and my father loved to tell a good bush yarn around the campfire. We were brought up in this story-telling ethos. It became second nature to me to tell my own stories."

The Heart Divided, written under her pen name Margaret Leigh, is inspired by the bushranger George Palmer and charts his love affair with a prostitute.

It's hardly the sort of thing a nun should be writing about but the Reformed Catholic Church is right behind her. "They'd like me to stay on but they understand if I don't," she says. "It's a time of prayer and discernment for me."

Read more!

When Saying Sorry is a Risk

Photo: Steven Siewert

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SATURDAY AUGUST 9

WHEN Mike Hercock, a Baptist pastor, put out a call for Christian clergy who wanted to make a public apology to gays and lesbians, he was knocked over in the rush. But when the time came for the priests and pastors to march at this year's Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, some of the so-called "100 Revs" lost their nerve.

"A few days before the march, I started getting phone calls," said Mr Hercock, a pastor with the Hope Street community project in Darlinghurst. "The harder calls were the ones saying, 'The dog ate my homework and I can't make it on Saturday to march.' "

The apology should have been big news. But as word spread that the 100 Revs would issue a statement condemning the church for being "profoundly unloving" to gays and lesbians, church leaders flew into action.

The Baptist Union sent a one-page letter to its members warning them that it did not support the apology. Catholic priests and Uniting Church ministers were discreetly told not to get involved.

A preacher at a Pentecostal church received hate mail. In the end, only 30 ministers marched. Even those who did not worried about their jobs. Mr Hercock said signing the apology was a career-defining move for many of the 100 Revs.

"For a lot of people it was always going to be a tough call," he said. "It can affect your ordination; it can affect your call to ministry. I don't know of one person who signed without going through some kind of internal process. They had to go through what the cost was to them, professionally and personally."

Six months later, the ramifications continue. The Baptist Union's national president, Ross Clifford, said this week that "discussions" with members who signed the apology were taking place. He said the church opposed the 100 Revs because the church did not support sex outside marriage and felt that the style of the apology, although well-intentioned, could be misunderstood.

"There will be discussions with people about why this was done without consultation with the church," he said.

One minister, who spoke to the Herald on the condition of anonymity, said she had asked that her name be taken off the list. She had graduated from Bible college but was not yet ordained.

"My fear was it would affect my call to ministry," she said. "I'm female and I'm divorced, and these are barriers even before they get to the 100 Revs."

The NSW police chaplain, Melissa Baker, said she struggled with internal conflict, but her personal convictions won. "In the end I just thought I can't sit on the fence. I can't sit quietly; I can't be in silence because I'm passionate about what I believe in."

Other ministers who spoke to the Herald expressed relief that the apology had gone largely unnoticed. "I might be looking for a job after this interview," quipped Reverend Clive Watkins of the Anglican Church. "But you've got to be prepared to take the flak."

Mr Watkins, who sits on the council of Cranbrook School, said he told the school because he "didn't want them to be hit with something they didn't know about". But he declined to tell the conservative Sydney Diocese. "I had genuine concerns," he said.

Three churches whose members were involved - the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, the Catholic Archdiocese and the Uniting Church - said no directive was issued. Concerns were also unfounded, because individual ministers had significant freedom to support various causes.

"They were being paranoid; we neither encouraged it nor discouraged it," said the Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth. "It's affected nobody's future and people signed it for very different reasons. It's very hard when you get blamed for something that people think you might do."

But small ripples of change make the 100 Revs confident that their defiance was not in vain. Ms Baker said she knows some gay and lesbian police who are considering returning to church.

Mr Hercock recently received a phone call from a young mother wanting her baby to be baptised by "someone who was part of the 100 Revs". Last month, a Melbourne pastor, Anthea Smits, mentioned the subject in passing at a conference in Adelaide and was overwhelmed by the interest. "It wasn't even the main topic of the talk," said Ms Smits, who is from the progressive Pentecostal church Urban Life. "But I had many people come and speak to me afterwards. They wanted to know how they could get involved."

One minister profoundly affected by the process is Peter Breen of Brisbane.

In 1995 Mr Breen - then a Wesleyan Church minister in Bundaberg - organised a high-profile protest march against the live broadcasting of the Mardi Gras on ABC TV. But alarmed by the "rabid right-wing gay bashers" he saw on the day of the protest, he began reading books by pro-gay Christian writers. Later a member of his family came out. Finally he began worshipping at St Mary's South Brisbane, known for its inclusive stance on gay rights.

From his new place of faith, Mr Breen said it is unlikely he can continue as an ordained minister. And he believes that the 100 Revs will have an enduring legacy in Australia.

"I think it was an event that had to happen," he said. "We might get ostracised or we might not be asked to speak at conferences. But it was something that had to be said."

Read more!

Lost in Transition

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SATURDAY AUGUST 2

Something is disappearing as the art of letter writing continues to decline, writes Erin O'Dwyer.

THE day after my grandfather Max Gericke died, we found a pile of yellowing letters
stuffed in a sandwich bag sitting on top of the rubbish. They begin as every love letter should – ‘‘My dearest . . .’’ – and are addressed in beautiful copperplate hand to my grandmother, Norma Edwards.

The letters date from 1941. It was the year before they married and the year my grandfather travelled between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne for his work. An accountant, he was also a poetry lover and a keen amateur historian. His eloquent ramblings contain remarkable gems about the social fabric of the three cities at that time.

‘‘Practically everyone tries to get a view of the harbour,’’ he writes of Sydney. ‘‘You’d be amazed at the positions some homes are built on. No soil for gardens. And the space for the clothes line has to be cut from rock. Land is a fabulous price too.’’

Some things never change. Neither did my grandfather’s principles.
The same musings about truth and beauty and love that he shared with his
sweetheart are the same values he upheld until the day he died at 96.

‘‘Many folk accept that after a few years of marriage things will become commonplace,’’ he writes. ‘‘It is expected and therefore it happens. Why should it be expected? Should there be anticipation of closer companionship, deeper affection, absolute trust and harmony, then these qualities will work out in life because effort will be made to realise them.’’

It’s language from a different time. The sentiments are from a different era, too.



Polish thinker Zygmunt Bauman has written
that we live in an age of ‘‘liquid
love’’. It’s acceptable to dump your
lovers via SMS. Or press delete on a
matchmaking website. Virtual relationships
set the pace of our love affairs.
The demise of the hand-written love
letter is symptomatic.
Real seduction, says Dr Paolo
Bartoloni, is disappearing because
society is too impatient. The lecturer in
comparative literary studies at Sydney
University says making love is an act of
mutual production. But it requires time
and commitment.
‘‘We’re experiencing today a gradual
shift from production to consumption,’’ he
says, ‘‘which has enormous implications for
our ways of relating with others.’’
Essentially, we’re too busy loving
ourselves to actually ‘‘make love’’ with a
partner. Not that he believes it is the end of
love – just that the
way we love is changing.
And the new
language of love – R
U free 4 dinner? –
slips in cosily beside
the language of the
new economy.
‘‘In today’s society,
the capital is impatient,
and love is impatient,
too,’’ he says. ‘‘There is
no time for long and
elaborate letters, there
is no time for sharing
and there is no time for seduction.’’
Sydney artist Andrew Newman is also
interested in the changing language of love.
‘‘It’s maybe a little more difficult to
romanticise these forms but I think over
time that an SMS message is as romantic as
a crumply note left under the door.’’
Newman is completing a masters on the
subject at the Sydney College of Arts. He was
16 when he found the wartime correspondence
of his grandparents tied with twine,
stuffed in a biscuit tin and hidden in the
back of the kitchen dresser. ‘‘It was like finding
treasure,’’ Newman says.
Captain Sidney Conlon and his wife Thora
had been married only a year when World
War II broke out. For five years, their marriage
was conducted entirely by love letter.
‘‘They talked about this grand love, this
great love,’’ Newman says. ‘‘It was an
abstract notion. They weren’t necessarily
writing of their love. Their writing to each
other was love.’’
Most people agree that email is good news
for the art of letter writing. Online
communities keep us in touch in ‘‘real time’’,
in ways inconceivable even a decade ago.
But what of the handwritten letter that
bears the lovers’ mark – the recognisable
script, the unusual flairs, the ability to transport
you elsewhere in time?
Some companies create electronic fonts that
mimic a person’s own handwriting. Surely this
is cheating. And who keeps emails anyway?
‘‘I have,’’ says Dominic Pettman, an
Australian lecturing in cultural studies and
media at New School for Liberal Arts in New
York City. ‘‘Obsessively, I’ve saved every email
I’ve ever sent or received over the past 14
years. And while I very rarely re-read them,
they are there patiently waiting to be clicked
on once again.’’ But the author of Retrofitting
Eros For The Information Age says email is
even for oldies these days. Generation Y only
communicates via blogs, MySpace and
internet messaging. ‘‘Anything with vowels is
considered too gushy and gauche,’’ he says.
‘‘Teenagers are being ‘creeped out’ by
anyone trying to express themselves in an
extended, articulate way.
‘‘Handwritten letters are already evaporating
from the consciousness of younger
generations. But there may be a lesson to be
learned in the fact that vinyl records are now
outselling CDs. Certain media come back
into vogue due to the powers of nostalgia.’’
I’m not so sure. I once had a love affair
with an English literature student. He counted
the ravishing Chilean poet Pablo Neruda
among his heroes but the best I got was an
inbox of one-line emails. And a scrawled note
that read: ‘‘Here’s the rent, take care and
thanks for being so wonderful.’’

Read more!