By Heather McDuffee"Don't come out unless you want to. Don’t come out for anyone else’s sake. Don’t come out because you think society expects you to. Come out for yourself. Come out to yourself. Shout, sing it. Softly stutter. Correct those who say they knew before you did. That’s not how sexualit
By Shaya FrenchAnd some kind of help / Is the kind of help / That helping's all about. And some kind of help / Is the kind of help / We all can do without. —from “Helping,” by Shel Silverstein, featured in Free to be You and Me (YouTube)It’s Day Twenty-three of summer and my friend still does not h
By Glen Thomas Rideout“If you don’t seek it, you won’t see it…I’ma build my own foundation…You won’t break my soul.” —Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-CarterWhen it was his turn to present his history project to our 7th grade class, he began with delight, flashing a large posterboard and permanent-marker fa
By Priscilla Shumway“When we acknowledge that all life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived consciously each moment. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world.” –Scout Cloud LeeEvery Saturday morni
By Sarah Skochko“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” –Annie DillardI was waiting for my chalupa in the drive-through when I saw a sign on the back door:DANGER!! NEVER open this door after darkALWAYS look before you open this doorYOUR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT!!One of my firs
By Abbey Tennis“There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.” —Rabbi Menachem Mendel of KotzkMy friend Rev. Debra Haffner shares with people that when she read fairy tales to her children as they grew up, she would skip the “happily ever after” part. When the epic love-at-first-sight between th
By JeKaren Olaoya“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” —Arundhati RoyMy mom is a searcher and I love her for that, because we went to a lot of different churches when I was growing up. I got a rich background in what
By Nathan Ryan“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” —Carl SaganI still feel stifled trying to talk about my children. Everything I can think to say about them is about how great, amazing, or wonderful they are. But then I stop myself bec
By Laura Solomon“To love someone isn’t so much to know them, as it is to know their never-ending becoming.” –Andrea GibsonWhen someone confronted me with the question, “How important is it to you that you’re queer?” I couldn’t answer. Unsure whether to feel confused or insulted, I fumbled awkwardl
By Laura Solomon“You at the edges and shores, in the rooms of quiet, in the rooms of shouting, in the airport terminal, at the bus depot saying “No!” and each of us looking out from the gorgeous unlikelihood of our lives at all, finding ourselves here, witnesses to each other’s tenderness, which, t