By knowing Joy, I knew grace

Reading the article “Unfollowed” by Adrian Chen about Megan Phelps-Roper, her sister Grace, and their departure from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in The New Yorker reminded of a story I often tell from my early life in Kansas. I’ve always told this story in small, private groups. It’s an artifact of being born and raised in Kansas; the care with which I select an audience. It’s something I’ve been challenging myself on. Stories are for telling, not squelching.

I realized as I read this article that (1) Megan and Grace may have been two of the little kids singing on the other side of the police barricade in this anecdote and (2) I should share this story more widely. It also brought back memories of being asked out by a Phelps in college, but that’s another story.

This story is about my first true experience of grace. When the student is ready, the teacher appears; a sentiment that repeatedly struck me as I read Chen’s article.

It was the 1990s, and I was studying Computer Engineering at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. I don’t know if WBC members paid the I-70 toll or took my preferred Old Highway 40 from Topeka into West 6th Street in Lawrence. The latter was a winding road with beautiful old barns along the way. Either way, it was a quick jaunt to come protest a Tori Amos concert.

I was not yet 20, but it had already been several years since I’d realized my romantic inclinations seemed to have no gender preference, and at least a year since college had taught me what a “bisexual” was. Not a perfect descriptor, but it was the closest thing I had to a label about my authentic self in the context of my love life. As a young woman clawing her way to adulthood and independence and a clear self-identity, Tori Amos had my musical heart.

This house is like pressure / With eyes cold and grey / You’ve got me moving in a circle / I dyed my hair red today / I just want a little passion / To hold me in the dark / I know I’ve got some magic / Buried, buried deep in my heart, yeah

It was 3 November 1996. Some friends and I walked to Lied Center for the Tori Amos show. Billy Miller, an incredible Native American musician, was her opening act that night. She played “Etienne” on her organ at my request, a highlight of college that still makes me smile. As we approached, we saw the tell-tale sign of the police barricade: the Westboro folks were picketing the concert. There were enough police and enough counter protestors that it was hard to see or hear them at first, but as we came closer, we heard it.

They were singing.

And as we came closer, we saw it: There were children.

And they were singing Christian hymns, but not the words that I’d learned when I attended Presbyterian church as a child. These were words about Hell and homophobia and eternal damnation. From the mouths of babes, songs of hate, corrupting songs that had been intended to warm the heart and bring congregations together in faith. To this day, I am disquieted by any child at a political protest, no matter how much I agree with the politics of that protest. That disquiet is fueled by this memory.

What I felt in that moment was rage. Rage that someone could take a message of love and intentionally turn it into hate. That these adults would drag their children into it. I was so angry, and I was about to join so many other students in shouting them down and lowering myself to my own brand of hate when I saw a coworker of mine.

Joy and I worked together at the university. She attended church regularly, and had a steady, long-term girlfriend. She was one of the first out lesbians I’d ever met, and the first gay Christian I’d met.

She was standing arm-in-arm with her girlfriend, facing the WBC picket line, and the two women were singing the correct words to the hymn.

All the anger drained out of me and I was left standing in awe. I had not known that I had not known grace until that moment. But here it was: Grace.

By knowing Joy, I knew grace. True in all the ways, really.

May we know joy, and grace.