Articles From Our January, 2008 Newsletter
Rainbow Legends
Dragonfly Stories Vol. 1
We are so please to have as our guest for the January 13th PFLAG/KC meeting Amanda and Joyce, the publishers of Rainbow Legends. They will share the story of an incredible journey in their 14 year life partnership and how it brought them to this place in their lives. Dragonfly Stories is a book of short stories written by many different people from all walks of life in the Gay community. This promises to be a truly exciting day for all of us at PFLAG/KC, so please come out and support these inspirational women as they share their story with us. Also, they will have their book for sale at the meeting, and 40% of the proceeds go to the a non-profit group of your choice (PFLAG/KC being one of those choices, wink, wink!). Hope to see you there!
Happy New Year All
In pondering what to write this month I marvel again that we have celebrated
5 anniversary with john -- his coming out has helped our entire family to
consider what it is to love. I ran across this paragraph in a book recently
and I am sure you will see why it struck a chord and resonated deep within
me.
"When I imagine myself as an old woman at the end of my life and ask myself how I will evaluate my time here, there is only one question that concerns me: Did I love well? There are a thousand ways to love other people and the world--with our touch, our words, our silences, our work, our presence. I want to love well. This is my hunger. I want to make love to the world by the way a live in it; by the way I am with my self and others every day. So I seek to increase my ability to be with the truth in each moment, to be with what I know, the sweet and the bitter. I want to stay aware of the vastness of what I do not know. This is what brings me to the journey. I do not want to live any other way"
Five years ago we were ignorant of our son’s sexual orientation...and once it was shared, the ball was in our court. We were thrust head long into the vastness of what we did not know. Education is an essential component of the PFLAG mission--the education of ourselves first, and then to help others along the journey. Learning cannot be undone--there is no turning back once we know the truth about something. The vastness of what I do not know still exists, but it does not frighten or upset me...it has helped me to more fully embrace this incredibly diverse world we live in...And in doing that I find I am loving with a greater capacity than I thought I was capable of.
My wish for us this New Year is that we embrace all who come to us without reservation...we might just learn something.
Jamie
Our community is losing one of our most dedicated and hard-working people in the Kansas City area at the end of December. Sarah Finkin left her job at Promo to return to graduate studies. As a member of PFLAG/KC , Sarah will be missed by us as well, but she will be such a loss to the gay community at large. I believe that many of us had a chance to work with Sarah and know the hard work, the heart, and soul she put into her work at PROMO. Such rare intelligence and grace under pressure, she will be missed by us all. I know that we wish her all the best in the future, for what ever stands ahead of this bright young lady, it will bear watching! And, hopefully she will come by and see us at PFLAG/KC, where she will always be family....
We're delighted to bring you one of the funniest and poignant THE LIFE OF REILLY, is the "final will and testament" of the great Charles Nelson Reilly, who is perhaps best known from his kitschy Match Game appearances and roles on countless sitcoms, from Car 54, Where Are You? and The Ghost & Mrs. Muir to documentaries of the year....about one of the most entertaining gay men in all of showbiz history.
The X-Files and SpongeBob SquarePants. The film’s directors asked the Broadway legend, before his death last spring, to perform his hilarious and exuberant one-man show, Save It for the Stage, one last time. The result is a warmly entertaining tour de force performance (filmed before a live audience) as Reilly presents a witty anecdotal timeline of his life, the Hollywood & Broadway legends he worked with, all interjected with haunting home movie footage and film clips throughout.
Watch the trailer, and learn more about this highly entertaining film at THE LIFE OF REILLY website. This film opens at the Tivoli Theatre on New Years Eve and Plays that week. A “must see” for those of us old enough to remember Mr. Riley ( Sandi included!)
GLSEN will be working with area schools to promote the No Name Calling week from January 21, 2008 until January 25, 2008. For more information, check out their website, www.glsen.org/kansascity.
WINTER CANCELLATION INFORMATION
As we did in December, due to bad weather, we will be posting cancellations of any future PFLAG/KC meetings on the web-site. The cancellations will be posted no later than noon of the day of each meeting. So please remember to check that web-site, and keep your fingers crossed for our January meeting!
PFLAG SUPPORTS REAL FAMILY VALUES