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Written by Andrew Warner
Nov 16, 2011
Thanksgiving celebrates the Pilgrims' first mythical feast. As a pastor of a church named after the Pilgrims' colony – Plymouth – Thanksgiving conjures many images. But the most vivid this year is of a visit my partner Jay and I made to see Peter Gomes at his cottage in Plymouth, Mass.
Peter died this past year, after a long and distinguished career serving as preacher at Harvard University's Memorial Chapel. Or, as he would prefer to express it, serving as the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.
One day in his office it came up that I was the son of a plumber. At first he thought I meant one of the Plummers who endowed his professorship.
"Not those plumbers," I said.
Peter went on to share the story of his Plummers. They were wealthy Boston Brahmans who made their money in the slave trade. Their morality was not his Christian morality, and he clearly enjoyed the irony of serving as an African-American gay man in a professorship given by folks who'd have disapproved of him on both counts.
What always drew me to Peter was that wonderful grace he brought to living with contradictions. He once said: "(My mother) always told me that I must invent my own reality. Reality will not conform to you. You must invent your own and then conform to it. So I did. I am an authentic and an original.
"I will not allow myself to be known simply as an African American, no more than I would allow myself to be known as gay or conservative. They are all bits and pieces of a work in progress. I am a child of God."
He was a child of God with all his contradictions, and his life helped me imagine how I could be my own original.
The inspiration he gave was more than spiritual. While some people look to Martha Stewart for decorating advice and example, I looked to Peter.
Once Jay and I visited and waited in the living room of his Plymouth cottage while he got ready for a tour of the old town. Every wall,
every surface held some picture, painting or plate. An enormous cathedral-styled bird cage overwhelmed the room.
Now every time I hang something new on the walls of our home, Jay gets worried that we're slipping closer and closer toward Peter's over-the-top decor.
Peter took a similar approach to his clothing: one night he held a dinner party and greeted us wearing a formal black tux with a loud Harvard crimson cummerbund and matching silk slippers. A tux and red slippers – I can only dream of pulling that off.
Peter certainly was an original. On Thanksgiving we can follow his advice: Invent your own reality and conform to it.
Some will gather for Thanksgiving dinner with family who do not know their sexual orientation. Is this the year to come out?
Others put up with family who do not fully accept them. Is this the year to create change?
And still others have invented their own reality of an inclusive family of friends and relations. Is this the year to widen your table to include someone who feels left out?
This Thanksgiving, be an original.
