My theological seminary has an annual luncheon not forty miles from where I now live. Normally, I do not go. I left the ministry some twenty-five years ago after severing seventeen years in the most unbelievable, underpaid, and unappreciated work under the sun. (If you attend religious services, try to be kind to your pastor/priest/rabbi.) I wanted to attend the luncheon this year to meet the new President, the first African American President in the Seminary's nearly 200 year history. (At Right: Modern seminary library)

I responded to the invitation by warning them that I was gay and had a partner. "It doesn't matter," said the email reply. "Bring your partner." I did not encourage him as I knew he would be bored around so many preachers and their wives.

At the luncheon I was met at the door by the Seminary's PR person, an ordained minister, whose daughter is planning to marry her girl friend in Massachusetts and have an unofficial wedding service here in Virginia for the family. I was also told that several current seminary students are openly gay, and the faculty is gay-friendly.

I was still stunned by this information when I found myself shaking hands with the Seminary's African American President who said that he was sorry that I had not brought my partner.

As I sat down to lunch, I was wondering: Is this a dream? Am I in Alice and Wonderland? Is this the same Seminary I attended in the early 1960s?

Before I left I inquired from another seminarian how the school planned to pass on to the churches that being gay was not a sin. The response was, "A lot of love." To which I added, "And a lot of time."