All posts by Lori Heine

Tealight Candle on Human Palms

Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Back in the old tent-meeting days, they used to sing a sweet little hymn called “Brighten the Corner Where You Are.” They probably still sing it in Bible schools. It seems a good way to motivate shiny-eyed children to live for Jesus without having to

LOVE in the hot summer

Love Is Just Plain Weird

This is a strange story. Both those in my long-ago and faraway “straight” life and those in my world today will surely think so. It is a love story. And it recounts the experience that, perhaps more than any other, showed me who I really

Soldier Wearing Brown Helmet Holding Assault Rifle

Ready, Aim, Fire

A few years ago in downtown Phoenix, the old-building-saving artsy crowd treated the local yokels to a spectacle, the like of which few had ever seen. While music played, our attention was drawn to several cannons. These were of the sort that used to fire

Welcome sign. Southbank Centre, London, U.K.

Flying Under Our Gaydar

In my city and perhaps most others, there are many churches that have no official policy of being welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people. The general assumption, in the GLBT community, is that if we’re not issued an “official” welcome, that means that

Catholic woman praying with a rosary at the church

An Encounter with the Church Lady

At lunch the other day, I struggled through yet another challenging conversation with my good friend, the Church Lady. She doesn’t really look like Dana Carvey, and I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate being satirized on Saturday Night Live. But she knows I’m writing this essay

Hands doing an explaining gesture

The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

It has been almost 10 years since I came out. Listening to many of my GLBT Christian friends agonize over how to talk to the straights in their lives about their sexuality, I realize that most of them go about it in the same ineffective

Two men holding hands in a field

It’s the Real Thing

I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony… In an article in The New York Times, my cousin’s enterprising husband, professor-turned-farmer Jerry Ford, described garlic as “the Grateful Dead of Vegetables.” And indeed, their first annual Minnesota Garlic Festival was something like

Two men holding hands in a field

Building on the Cornerstone

… (Jesus) looked at them and said, “What then does this text mean: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” When the

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

Where’s Momma?!

As I begin this essay, on the evening of Mother’s Day, I have a very pertinent question: “Is Momma in the house?” The American Right is now in the process of imploding upon itself. How can we know, for certain, that it is about to

Two men holding hands in a field

Are We Worth It?

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians and seekers, I want to ask you all a very important question. Are we worth it? Do you believe that we are worth as much as hetero Christians? I know I’m being blunt, but we have no time to