Today's Mailbox

I got a lot of nice messages and letters yesterday and today acknowledging my year anniversary of telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth about myself (see www.bloginthenow.blogspot.com - 'One Year Later Part I')

Thanks so much for your letters, everyone, but I think this one is my favorite...

Bish, with this whole year anniversary business going on I found myself wanting to take a longer time to listen to you today. I'm off work, fighting a tiny autumn cold, and decided to just stay in, cuddle my dogs, and listen to you while drinking tea and eating apples. Sounds picturesque, doesn't it?

I find myself truly wanting to communicate what you already know... lol. You speak in this sermon about how immature people can be in their walk debating God in one, or three, or a thousand. And you mention that you are getting affirmation that you're just aware of it and in the flow of some of the oldest news in the world. It seems to me, as a person who has wandered from mainline Lutheranism through AOG and onwards through eastern religions and back through honest and sincere prayer and pursuit, that indeed you have a key that so many have lost. If people realized how ultimately simple the Truth actually is.... but, it's more expedient for powers and principalities to separate and encourage ego over agape.

At any rate, I wish I had met you when I was wandering through Carrollton at West Georgia a decade ago. People love to insult Christianity, not always without reason.. but you really do get it, and you distill truths for people to find and pursue God in easy, loving ways. If more people had access to teaching such as yours, they wouldn't need to wander to Buddhism and other traditions to find that Christianity holds the same intelligence and teachings on curbing ego and seeking transcendence through the Holy Spirit.

I've often said that Christians now have the hardest path of all. The original message of Christ has been so perverted that believers need to focus their work even harder than followers of other faiths. The eye of a needle is the best metaphor! I still believe this is true because of the pressure to place dogma and theology over mystic experience, actual experience of God in the Now moment. However, your teachings show me it's still possible.

Don't ever stop what you are doing. Like you have written, God always provides. People want to make it about your orientation. But you know it's so much more than that.

And yes, next time I get back to Charlotte to visit family, I'll have to take the 85 hop south and wander through.

Love to you and everyone involved in your ministry.

S.D.

Good Stuff

I saw you speak at Oasis yesterday and it was truly life changing. I think this is the first time that I felt directly engaged with the scripture as if it was relevant to me as a gay man.

So many people have made me feel like this couldn't be my faith if I lived my life honestly...but you asked as God asked, "who told you that?" and why?

I could be angry at those Christians who cast me aside with fundamental interpretations but I am mostly just simply grateful for the sermon you ministered today, it is like my heart is truly beating again for the first time as a Christian.

God spoke through you directly to me instead of at me or over me or around me...for once my faith and my sexual identity could be at peace and engaged together in thoughtful and joyful praise.

When you asked us to open the bible to Genesis, I rolled my eyes...because for the longest time reading the bible especially the Old Testament has been to me like like making the victim of a crime return to the crime scene.

Yet God worked through you to make Genesis one of my favorite books now. Now that the beginning of the book doesn't seem so bad after all, maybe I will read the whole thing through.

Thank you also for speaking to the fact that religion has historically acted as a boys only club. I completely agree, the outright disregard for feminism and women leadership in so many Christian circles has profoundly bothered me.

I am now living my life with extra thought about striving for the tree of life versus the tree of good and evil.

Thank you and god bless.

David Thomas Moran

America, the Beautiful

I heard this song played several times yeterday during the 9/11 Memorial Ceremonies, and I mentioned its composer, Katharine Lee Bates, in the morning service at CHUCH IN THE NOW EAST.

Here is the first verse to her classic...one of the most beautiful ever written, in my opinion. I love the Star Spangled Banner, but I'm one of those who would vote to have this awesome hymn become our national anthem. It's interesting to think that a woman who could write something like this would not be accepted in most mainstream churches today, nor would her partner of 25 years, Katharine Coman...

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

The Ministry of Reconciliation

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(II Corinthians 5:16-21)

Las Vegas Conference: "Surviving the Storm"...

"Thank you for your sermon at the Fellowship Convocation. I enjoyed your presence."
- Victoria Burson

"Thank you for being a truth teller! May God's Blessing continue to over take you!"
- Charla Kouadio


"Love you Bishop Swilley! Wow is what I can say at this moment!"
- Tanya Maryoung


"Bishop, you were awesome. It was great to hear from the Lord through you. Continue to be you and know that your latter will be greater."
- Kellie Turner


"Thank you for being you, Las Vegas Conference - Surviving the Storm."
- MoBetta James

CornerstoneFellowship/Houston Pride

A special thank you for an evening with..it was all & more than I wanted or expected...my partner had only heard of you thru me..now he knows how what an effect you have on God's people...thanks for the hug
- James Ozga

I guess I need to be on FB more. How in the WORLD could I have moved to Houston, missed you so much, and missed you when you were here. This place NEEDS more of you, believe me!!!
- Dea Smith

Bishop, it was great seeing you. Such a rich word you shared at Cornerstone. Really enjoy the fellowship afterward at dinner. Seemed like old times in a new way.
- Susan Watson


Thanks for the word. We love your honesty. We really enjoyed having you in Houston! Lots of love heading your way. Christa and Holly from Cornerstone Fellowship
- Holly and Chris Ortego


I cannot express how much I enjoyed this weekend! Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to visit us at Cornerstone Fellowship. Joe and I are looking forward to seeing you again in August. We hope you will not be a stranger to Houston!
- Shannon Manley


Tonight WAS awesome. So glad you came in town. Loved hanging out and laughing over dinner! What a treat!! And it was great hearing your message tonight! As always...love your guts! :)
- Jere Luck


Bishop, thank you so much for sharing 'so much' of your testimony with our church family. Looking forward to seeing you in August. Take care and God bless!
- Joseph Carl Bales

Observing Bible Abominations...Abomination #4: SOWING DISCORD AMONG BROTHERS (TROUBLE-MAKING IN THE FAMILY)

These six things the Lord hates, indeed, seven are an ABOMINATION to Him...(#7) he who sows discord among his brethren.
(Proverbs 6:16, 19 - AMP)

...a troublemaker in the family. (Proverbs 6:19 - The Message)