"Sarah, that’s amazing!" I said. "Do you get up in the middle of the night?"

"Yep," she said.

I just called her for an update. One of the little deer didn’t make it, but the other one is thriving.

This story seems appropriate for the things I’ve been writing about in this newsletter concerning my recent work on the subject of how we relate to our gay brothers and sisters.

Sarah carried the deer.

Jesus carried the sheep.

The Good Samaritan carried the traveler who had been beaten.

Are we loaning our arms and our strength to those in our lives who clearly need them?

I am so grateful that more and more of our gay brothers and sisters are living lives that are marked by self-respect and strength and joy rather than by self-loathing and weakness and anguish. But there are still too many who fall by the wayside and we walk past them.

After I sent out last month’s newsletter, I received an email from a woman in Utah and, with her permission, share part of it here.

"I was intrigued by what you said about the California matter [constitutional amendment to insure against gay marriage] and bringing more love to the earth. I'm in agony over the suicide death two months ago of my youngest son, Marshall, age 25, a gay student who was a senior in chemical engineering at the U of U. He knew all about spreading love, but didn't feel enough in return to keep him going. Laws such as this one they are proposing give us a lot of room to evaluate our values. I put my son's statue of Buddha out in my flower box as a way to honor what he would have done. He always put statues out to watch over the flowers in the apartments he rented on the Avenues of Salt Lake City. On my refrigerator I have a package of flower seeds marked, in his writing: 5/1. That was the day he was going to plant them. He didn't make it that long, so I'll plant them for him--next spring. My two daughters and I will each plant some of his seeds and watch them bloom in Utah and Virginia."

That email broke my heart, as did the conversation I had recently with a woman who told me that a few years ago in her neighborhood in Bountiful, Utah, there were suicides of three LDS gay young men. And the conversation I had the other day with a woman in my own ward who told me her two gay nephews had both taken their lives. I am outraged that Marshall could not plant his flower seeds, outraged that his community did not offer to him the fertile soil he needed in which to grow and to bloom. And deeply saddened that so many other gay men and women have fallen and had no one to pick them up and carry them a ways, fallen from injuries we ourselves have inflicted upon them.

*****

Those who are interested in examining the issues around the proposed amendment to the California constitution, Proposition 8, may find the following websites useful:

*****

Recently I received this note:

"I know you've made a big difference in how my own bishop views this issue. He's told me several times how your books have influenced him to re-think his formerly completely negative views about gays/lesbians and their families. He says that my stake president echoes the praise for the work you've done speaking up and out for people who need to be loved more than we are sometimes willing to love them."

For those who are interested in sharing NO MORE GOODBYES with family, friends and church leaders, I am offering the following:

*****

"You must enlarge your souls towards each other, if you would do like Jesus, and carry your fellow-creatures to Abraham’s bosom."

Praying for a peaceful summer, kind hearts, wise minds and angels to be with us all,

Carol Lynn