Free copies of "Silent Lives" for GLBT-welcoming ministries

PFLAG Juneau has received another grant to give away several hundred more copies of the book by local author Sara Boesser, Silent Lives: How High a Price?

Silent Lives combines autobiographical stories, personal interviews and questions for reflection to explore issues about everyone's sexual orientation and gender status, whether heterosexual, or gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersexual.

Boesser examines the consequences a sexual minority person suffers when attempting to pass as heterosexual or as having a traditional gender expression. She also looks at how society as a whole is affected when an individual is pressured to hide his or her sexual identity.

This year, the gift copies are available for furthering the work of "Welcoming Ministries" around the country: for faith and religious people, groups and denominations that are working to become more accepting of GLBT people, for your own work to make your faith community more accepting of GLBT people, or to give to someone you know who is involved in that effort, maybe a copy for a church or synagogue library, a counselor's office, a religious parent, or a faith leader, rabbi, minister, preacher, pastor, or priest.

The book isn't religious per se, but Boesser is a minister's daughter and she reflects on that in the book. Excerpts of Silent Lives are posted on the Silent Lives web site.

"This book is the result of my personal struggle for integrity," Sara wrote in the introduction to Silent Lives. "I realized I could no longer be silent and let society condemn a core part of me while praising the outer manifestations I selectively permitted it to see. And with that realization came another: while society was blind, my very silence was what blocked its vision."

"From that instant of realization, my only hope for personal peace was to seek clues that could free me from my silence and to speak out about what I discovered in the process. This book is the result of the first fourteen years of that search."

Kathy Reim of the Skagit PFLAG chapter wrote a column based on Silent Lives:

"Where is the silence in my life or yours? What do we lose when, as Sara Boesser challenges us, we "pass"- we pretend for whatever reason to be something else to make it comfortable for others and easier for ourselves - and lose our authenticity in the process?"

"... Boesser suggests we all lose when silence separates us. We end up hiding from ourselves. When the safety net is widened for all of us, the lives of everyone will be enriched."

If you'd like a free copy or two, write to Sara Boesser with your name and mailing address, and say how many copies you'd like. And feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

You can read more about the welcoming Christian movement at Welcoming Community Network, and the welcoming multi-faith movement at Welcoming Resources.