Rev. Penelope Thoms on a chaplain re-called

Looking Back to Laramie

Almost ten years ago on October 6, 2000, a young man named Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead on a wooden fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. The young perpetrators who murdered him because he was small, rich and gay are serving life sentences in Rawlings, Wyoming. They will never know freedom; they have been allowed to live because of the mercy of Judy and Dennis Shepard, Matthew’s parents. It is not a kind facility to young boys, not yet men. Perhaps there are some days that they wish they had been given the death penalty. Anyone who has read the book, seen the movie or the play, The Laramie Project, knows the events.

My husband and I were intimately involved with Laramie, Wyoming, the Shepards, and Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, where Matthew died six days after arriving in the ICU. I was the chaplain for Matthew; my husband, Steve, was the minister for the Unitarian Church in Laramie that provided refuge to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered (GLBT) community. Ten years later, we are still contacted by schools and theatre groups asking what was it like to be there; to know those characters described in the story. It shaped our lives and continues to affect our ministries.

I was on call in Fort Collins when I heard about the attempted murder of the young man in Laramie. My husband had just accepted a new ministry at the tiny Unitarian church in the University town. That morning he was officiating at the wedding of an old friend in Northern California and had planned to stay the weekend. I called him and said, “There is something happening that I think is important. Can you come home early?” It was homecoming weekend in Laramie; of course there would be a parade and celebrations. We agreed that the congregation needed to be represented in some fashion in support of the GLBT population and so Steve contacted the Unitarian Universalist President, Jeff Lockwood, who organized a support contingent that apparently grew as word spread of the horrific circumstances surrounding the crime.

Meanwhile, Matthew had been airlifted to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, where there was a more sophisticated ICU. Matthew’s aunt and uncle were the first to arrive as Matthew’s parents were out of the country. They did not acknowledge that this had been a hate crime and refused to discuss Matthew’s admitted homosexuality. As chaplain, it was my job to support the family – he was a brother, a son, a nephew and a member of the Episcopal Congregation in Laramie, Wyoming. But as soon as the press arrived, he became a martyr. The grace of Dennis and Judy Shepard is that when they arrived at Matthew’s bedside, they did not close the hospital doors. A regular updated message was released to the greater community who, by this time, had become national.

Matthew’s priest was out of town and the priest in charge, a small, reserved older woman who only wanted to retire, was placed in the public eye much against her will. I became her spiritual director and chaplain as well when the cameras and reporters closed in on her. Together we formulated a press statement and she promised that she would not close the church doors on Sunday morning although she was afraid of what “lunatics might show up.”

Steve arrived late that afternoon and went directly to Laramie where he opened his small church to anyone needing sanctuary and a safe place to be. The people came in droves, filling the small space. Farmers, ranchers, professionals, and academics – all needing a place to be who they were: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered; to feel God’s loving presence and to be surrounded by Spirit.

Matthew never woke, his brain crushed. We later heard that when the sheriff arrived she thought he was a child because he was so tiny “and that there was blood on only one side of his face because the tears had washed the other side.” I thought of the shortest sentence in the Bible: “And Jesus wept.” Another statement the sheriff made in the trial was that a doe was laying down at Matthew’s feet when she arrived. “She looked at me and at Matthew and seemed to hand her responsibility over in the brief space, that brief eye contact.” I like to think that Matthew was not alone during that long dark cold night under the stars and sky.

The towns of Laramie and Fort Collins were shaken by the event. Elton John held a concert in support of the Matthew Shepard Foundation that Steve had started. The money went to educate young children about the power of words or defamation towards people of color, infirmity, sexuality….the Other, of which we harbor fear and ignorance. The concert sold out. Conservative nurses sat next to lesbian and homosexual couples. People hugged one another in ways that expressed their common humanity.

During this time, I was earning a Master’s in Anglican studies while completing an internship at a small conservative Episcopal church in Fort Collins after completing seminary in Berkeley. The church had moved farther to the right since I had joined it the prior year and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their theology of intolerance; but I was committed and had been through a year-long discernment committee process which affirmed my call.

The week after Matthew’s murder, I stood up in the Wednesday morning service during the public time for joys and concerns and told the story of standing at the fence and knowing Jesus was with Matthew that long night; of bringing people to the fence who felt the presence of the Holy and experiencing the all powerful sense of peace and reconciliation experienced by hundreds of people in Steve’s Unitarian church. I talked about the young gay man who came to me with tears and asked if God loved him; of telling that same man that not only did God love him, God wept with him as God wept with Matthew during his suffering.

That week I was to meet with the Bishop before proceeding with my process toward ordination. The night before I was to go to Denver I got a call from my priest. The vestry had stopped my process. According to them, I did not accept the veracity of Biblical pronouncements against homosexuality and would be a detriment and liability to the Episcopal priesthood. No one from my congregation called to see how I was handling this devastating news. Not one person. No one emulated Jesus in His compassion and love. No one behaved like a Good Samaritan; no one stood at the well. I was left alone with my tears and my belief in God’s embracing love, intact and strong.

Shortly after that Steve and I moved to Northern Virginia where I continued my work as hospice chaplain. Steve commuted to New York and Laramie where Moshes Kauffman was interviewing him for the “Steve Johnson” character in The Laramie Project. On Samhain 2000, we moved to the west of Ireland where I wrote my book about living and dying within Celtic Spirituality, Thin the Veil. Six years later we were contacted by Trinity College Dublin: Would we be their guests at the opening night of the Irish Theatre Company’s Production of The Laramie Project? Would we available for Q & A after the final curtain? Yes and Yes. We talked to the audience, the players, and the greater Irish community until 2 in the morning. The theme of fear and hate of the Other is universal. The Laramie Project continues to be the most produced contemporary play in the world. The Matthew Shepard Foundation continues to educate young children about the power of their words.

Today, I am ordained in the Ecumenical Catholic Church and provide sacramental and spiritual comfort to all God’s creatures as wedding, funeral, and communion officiant. My patients and their families feed my soul and I am affirmed in my ministry. I recently “googled” my old church in Fort Collins. The name has been changed; the congregation removed and the priest no longer serving a congregation on this continent.

I think of the doe lying at Matthew’s feet and know that God is smiling.

For more information on the Matthew Shepard Foundation, go to: http://www.matthewshepard.org/site/PageServer

For more information on The Laramie Project, go to: http://www.time.com/time/classroom/laramie/

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