Anyone who knows me knows I have two obsessions. The first is Robert Frost. While sitting here in St. Thomas', I'm often reminded of one of my favorite Frost works, Nothing Gold Can Stay. If you remember the book or even the film The Outsiders, this is the one often quoted by Pony Boy Curtis. Frost tells us that something Golden produced by nature is the most perfect color of creation.

And this place, to me, is golden, it is perfection. Though there is cramped space, mismatched carpet, and cracks in the wall, this place nonetheless embodies everything I regard as perfect.
 
For many of my fellow gay southerners that have felt the sting of evangelicalism, it took a great deal for us to come back to the church. Once outsiders, now insiders, this is a perfect place, a place that has achieved perfection in that it refuses to discriminate, refuses to back down, and while doing this has built for its parishioners a tender oasis for thought and fellowship.  
 
My second obsession is Joni Mitchell. I think if you are in grad school and suffer a nasty break-up, you get issued Joni Mitchell's album Blue.
 
I knew I was at home the minute I sat down here. Back row.
 
When the rector rose that Sunday and quoted Joni Mitchell, I knew my church shopping days were over. Blue, the album. "A Case of You" was the tune. "I could drink a case of you," the song says. This place is in my blood like holy wine, and I could drink a case of it, and I would still be on my feet. And if you have ever come to Sacred Grounds, you know this is just no mere metaphor.
 
That's why I give. So, this something Gold can stay, for us outsiders now insiders. I give because this place is so completely necessary words can hardly do it justice.