After graduating in May of 2005, I moved to Washington, DC to begin an M.A. program at Georgetown University. And it is here in DC where I met my first gay friends in my entire life. Our straight friends would even as a group, on rare occasions, accompany our gay or lesbian friends to gay bars. I admit I was quite terrified my first evening at Chaos. However, after one visit to Cobalt, I knew I had to go back to see the muscular bartenders. In August 2006, I finally came out to a group of close friends-one straight and two gay. As this long-held deep secret finally came to light many questions and struggles about my faith rushed through my mind. At this very decision point I figured I had two different paths ahead of me: 1) to run away from God and the upbringing I had and 2) to find a way to struggle with the tensions between my faith and being gay.

I had been taught from a young age and firmly believed in the truth declared in Paul's Letter to the Romans that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." My relationship with God was and is very important to me and I did not want anything to change that...even coming out as gay. My faith was my own, I had asked many hard questions of it in the past, I couldn't imagine how being gay would change God's love for me; however, I was very scared about how my newly revealed sexuality would fit in a community of faith.

I knew I had heard that there existed churches that were accepting of all persons regardless of sexual orientation and I decided that same week I came out that I must find one and visit very soon so that my walk in faith was not interrupted. Naturally, I googled Episcopal church as a starting place and found the Diocese of Washington's website and then checked the search box for LBGT ministries for parishes within the diocese. I found St. Thomas' and realized it was the same church my atheist gay friend, Daniel, had told me about down the street from his apartment because he went to some neat Arts in the Park event there. Unfortunately, I was flying back to California for 10 days and could not visit the church immediately, but put it on my calendar to visit as soon as I returned to Washington. Upon returning, the first service was a noon service on Wednesday in the middle August.

This service was the defining moment of my experience at St. Thomas and a large part in why I still worship here every week. I walked into a service with about two other parishioners and a visiting priest from the Caribbean who presided over the service. It was a small and intimate service. I fumbled through the Book of Common Prayer--though not my first time in an Episcopal church, I was use to a much more contemporary service with a full band and large power point projector screens with all the words you might need. Regardless of the style of worship, the experience was very special. In the breaking of the bread and drinking of the wine I experienced a mysterious and powerful encounter with Christ in which I was reassured that he loved me dearly, unconditionally, and would not forsake me. Partaking in that Eucharist was the first time I prayed and laid out before God, "look God, I am gay. Here I am. I still love you, I want to know you more and continue to follow you." In that moment I felt God's warm, large embrace reassuring me that even with my "gay secret" out in the open, he still loved me and being gay did not have to be a hindrance to following and serving Christ.