SACRED GROUND

Avery: I'm always amazed when I go speak somewhere because I always tell folks I'm willing to wait behind and answer questions one on one. I had one group that I spoke to at Wright State. Forty-five students in the class at night, and I was part of a panel, and as we're closing the panel, I said, “Before we go, I want to tell you something.” Because we had open questions and answers. I said, “There are forty-five people here and very few of you have asked questions. I know a lot of you are probably like me. When I was your age. You wouldn't ask a question in a room of 40 something members of your peers if your life depended on it, but you'll ask it individually. So I will hang around as long as you want.

I was there for two hours. Talking one on one with these students. And what came out of that two hours to me was people - and it doesn't matter if they're LGBT, in this case, it was LGBT -they are longing for community of some sort. They're longing for connection of some sort. I think too often our churches don't get that. And if we could figure out how to tap into that, we could probably become a better people.

As one of my civil rights professors, who actually was a personal friend of Dr. King, Vincent Harding, said, “We're always striving to build a more perfect union. To realize what the founding fathers had in mind.” He says, “We never get there but we keep striving.” Just like the pursuit for happiness doesn't guarantee you happiness. It guarantees you have the opportunity to pursue it.

And so that's one of the things I try to do, is give people a safe space. Because even if the community's only two people - and I have come to realize and recognize that Mr. Rogers was right. That the space between two people, whether it's two people sitting across from each other like we're doing or whether or not it's like he did with the kids through the medium of television, that space is sacred ground. Don't do anything to violate it. And so I - I've always tried to live with that in mind. Never take a conversation for granted. And just give thanks for the opportunity to have those conversations.