‘N Touch News Network Blog

By George Burson

When you are gay and looking for a spiritual home, it tends to be difficult to find a

church that will accept you as you are. My partner David and I were cradle Catholics and over the years, we have been involved in various ministries. While the Catholic communities that we have belonged to have accepted us for the most part, the teachings of the Catholic Church does not accept active homosexuals and we are not about to live a celibate life to conform.

In 2003, we decided that the time had come for us to begin exploring other churches that were more accepting of gays and our journey began. As we explored various denominations we found far greater acceptance, but there still very often seemed to be conditions and limitations or the worship structure was very different than what we enjoyed. Finally frustration set in and we decided to give up our search and spend Sunday mornings at home.

Recently we moved to central Phoenix from the west valley and decided to begin our search again. We had thought about trying some of the gay churches in town but opted to try some more mainstream churches where the congregation would offer a mix of backgrounds and sexual orientations. We had tried a couple of churches that people had recommended to us and on Christmas Eve decided to try the First Congregational United Church of Christ. We didnʼt know much about the church, however much to our surprise, we found exactly what we were looking for!

We walked into what looked like a very charming but traditional church and found anything but a traditional congregation.

We have never had so many people come over to us to greet and welcome us to a church. There was a very visible LGBT presence, but many of the people welcoming us included older heterosexual couples who had been members for 40 or 50 years as well as young families. We even ran into several friends who we did not know attended the church.

We decided to return to the church the following Sunday and began doing some homework on this church that seemed too good to be true. In looking into the history of the church, we discovered that the forebears of the UCC were the pilgrims arriving in America in 1620. In 1785, Lemuel Haynes was ordained the first African American minister in the United States by the Congregational Church. In 1853, Antoinette Brown was ordained the first female minister by the Congregational Church. In 1957 the Evangelical, Reformed and Congregational churches joined to form the United Church of Christ.

In 1972, The UCC ordained William R. Johnson, the first openly gay minister in a Christian Church in modern times.

The church has obviously had a long tradition in the fight for social justice, and is a welcoming home for the disenfranchised of all walks of life. For David and I, this is what “church” truly is about.

For the last 18 years, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Stephen E. Wayles, who is openly gay, the First Congregational UCC has been in the fight for gay rights, civil rights and immigration rights. It is a church that welcomes everyone equally. Groups meeting at the UCC include PFLAG, Hispanic PFLAG, 1n10, Desert Overtures, and Full Circle Womenʼs Choir. The church is involved with the Interfaith Cooperative Ministries and Habitat for Humanity.

Rev. Wayles feels that at UCC “we take the bible too seriously to take it literally” and that faith in God is demonstrated by how we treat others especially those that are different from ourselves. The church with over 400 members is comprised of approximately 60% heterosexual and 40% from the LGBT community. The church was the first integrated church in Phoenix. The church also performs gay commitment services.

Services are held on Sunday morning at 10:30. This is a service that incorporates traditional, contemporary and secular music sung by a great choir. If you prefer non traditional services, the church has recently begun an alternative service under the leadership of Rev. Jarrett Maupin on Sunday evening at 6. This service was begun as an outreach to people who have been rejected from churches or donʼt feel comfortable in a traditional church setting.

You can find out more about the First Congregational United Church Of Christ by going to phoenixucc.org and ucc.org.

The First Congregational United Church of Christ is located at 1407 North 2nd Street in Phoenix, AZ.

By Dr. Damien Brandeis

Dear Dr. B., Everyone tells me to take vitamins and supplements.  Is there a general list that says take so much Vitamin E and so much of this or that? I just turned 50 and generally feel in pretty good health.

You have such a great question.  The US Department of Agriculture recommends daily amounts for several vitamins, but its information is, frankly, outdated.  The direct answer to your question is, um, not really.

It’s a well-known fact that the average amount of beta-carotene in your conventionally grown carrot in 2011 is a seventh of what you would have found in a carrot grown in 1950.  Vitamins are assimilated best from good sources of organic foods, but most people can’t always eat organic.  This is a great argument for supplementation what with today’s eating habits coupled with the quality of the conventional foods available these days.  The question is not what but how much.  Dose is the issue.  One can generally never go wrong with good doses of water soluble vitamins, such as C and the Bs. Any excess you ingest is readily eliminated from the body.  Fat soluble vitamins, namely A, D, E, and K are more problematic because the amount you do not use right away gets stored in body fat.  So beware of taking large amounts of the fat soluble ones.  They can be toxic and have harmful side effects.

Let’s start with Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid. This vitamin is found in many foods, the most notable of which are the citrus fruits.  Vitamin C is an antioxidant and an essential nutrient, meaning we must have it.  The absence of Vitamin C leads to the medical condition known as scurvy.  When we label ascorbic acid with a radioactive nucleotide and watch its activity in lab rats, it concentrates in the adrenal glands where it is believed to promote their healthy functioning and our immune system.  This is the direct causal connection between the use of Vitamin C and combating seasonal viral infections.  Scientists argue about its direct effect on viruses, but the adrenal glands modulate our immune systems.  The adrenal glands also play a huge role in managing stress in our bodies.

There are many opinions about how much Vitamin C a person should take.  Recommendations vary from the USDA recommending a daily average of 90 milligrams (mg) to Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate in chemistry, who took 18,000 mg daily.  Like Dr. Pauling, I am a Vitamin C enthusiast.  I recommend that my patients take 1000 mg of buffered Vitamin C every day.  In patient cases with high oxidative stress, I recommend patients take a dose to bowel tolerance (over 3 grams a day by mouth generally causes diarrhea or treats constipation!) For oxidative stress, I administer Vitamin C intravenously in what is commonly called a Meyer’s Cocktail.  The cocktail is a great energy booster, positive way to treat stress, and an excellent medicine to fight a cold.  The next cocktail you buy, consider one with a good dose of Vitamin C and some B vitamins.

I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Is there a homeopathic way to treat it?    Pam

Yes, but let me be very precise: while there is no single homeopathic remedy for treating fibromyalgia, there certainly is a way to treat your condition successfully with homeopathic medicine.  Homeopathy is a complete stand alone system of medicine.  After conducting an extended interview, usually an hour or more, the doctor arrives at a “constitutional” remedy based on all of your symptoms.  The symptoms will include not only those which mainstream medicine attributes to the disease known as fibromyalgia, but also a wide array of physical and emotional characteristics.  Remedies are medicines made from serial dilutions of mother substances made from plants, animals, and minerals.  They come in pills, liquid form, and there are thousands of different remedies.  The objective is to move the body’s vital force to bring about its own resolution of the disease.

Please understand that, if you are looking for a specific remedy for fibromyalgia, the answer to your question is no.  Homeopathy approaches disease in a different manner than allopathic medicine.  Homeopathy is tailored to the individual, and because all people are different, it treats each person’s disease as different and unique.  The remedy that would treat your fibromyalgia may be different from another fibromyalgia sufferer.  In fact, there may be a hundred different remedies an experienced homeopathic might choose from to treat you.

Fibromyalgia is an inflammatory process that has settled in muscle and its supporting tissues.  The pain and discomfort is caused by the inflammation of the tissue.  When the cause of the inflammation is addressed and eliminated, the pain and discomfort go away.  I treat my fibromyalgia patients with a number of modalities, including changes in dietary habits, herbal medicines, homeopathy, macro nutritional supplements (vitamins and amino acids), and mind/body medicine.  This approach always improves the health of a fibromyalgia sufferer. Thanks for the letters and keep them coming!

Dr. Damien Brandeis, NMD has a private practice located in Chandler.  Dr. Brandeis is a new Cigna provider, so please give him consideration for your medical care.  For more information, please visit  drbrandeis.net or call 480-855-6560.

By Dr. Dina Evan

I use to think, “These are easy things to fix,” would be a welcomed acknowledgment to couples coming in for therapy. However, very often even as the words wafted from my mouth, instead of a joyful yippee, the response is often a deer in headlights expression of, oh crap. This response made me start to wonder whether it is the truth that we resist, or our attachment to the lies that we believe.

It’s much easier to believe that we are forever broken and in need of constant support and pity than it is to risk being whole. It is easier to believe that our relationships cannot be fixed, than to accept that we can create a profound connection that might go away. It is easier to believe that we are helpless in a world gone mad than it is to get mad, say our truth and risk being abandoned. Since we are creating our own reality as we go, of course our beliefs are mirrored back to us with an affirming, “ You win, your illusion is absolutely correct and here’s the proof. Things are exactly as you believe them to be.” Consequently, if you believe all people will abandon you, when you bring into your life people who are incapable of committing and they ultimately abandon you, sure enough, you stand back and say…hey, see I was right.

Life is tricky. It wasn’t designed to be that way. We just couldn’t conceive of having so much power that we could actually create what we want, so we dumbed down instead and pretended to be helpless and unconscious. Arthur Stopenhauer says, “All truth goes through three stages, first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident.”
Most of us are still in the somewhat violently opposed era, but really, isn’t it time to move on to what is self-evident? The buck stops with us.

Fundamentally, people just don’t want to believe the obvious truth even when it would make them happy. Why? Perhaps, it is because we don’t want to be responsible or maybe we are afraid of the enormous implications some truths contain, such as the truth that we create our own reality. That truth could imply that not only do we have some responsibility for where we are right now, but also, we are also responsible for where we are going. Therein lies the rub and the place where we shut down. We do that because taking personal responsibility is another one of those things we pretend not to know we must do. We hate admitting our relationship sucks because what if no one else comes who would love us. We hate leaving that job that is going nowhere because we aren’t sure we are worthy of a better one. We hate standing up in our ethics because we are afraid of being different and ostracized. On top of all that, we are overwhelmed just trying to decide where to make a dent in this broken system.

All change occurs from the inside out, beginning with a willingness to see the illusions and own them. That means kicking the judgments and limitations to the curb and becoming a person who is willing to explore the unthinkable – ideas such as people do stay, honesty is respected and being different is the badge of an inquiring mind and a courageous soul. It means starting to live those outrageous ideas, first in your own small circle and then as you feel increasingly more comfortable, moving them out into your bigger world. It means having a support group of others who dance on the edge and mirror back your insane sanity. It means being willing to make it contagious. Despite how hard we might try to be in denial, a truth once heard will always be a truth. So, speak your truth aloud and let it reverberate in others who will take courage from your acts of enlightened pioneering, and who will begin to speak their truths as well.

Unconsciousness gives the illusion of a certain degree of security and comfort. This is why we cling to not knowing as if it were the last potential lover in existence. However, illusions are not real, seldom satisfying and there is no security in remaining unconscious. We say we intend to live consciously, but doing it is a broad jump because the grooves in the status quo are deep and enduring. It’s hard to get out of the rut even when it is costing us our quality of life and character. As Dresden James says, “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” When you are standing in your ethics, being a raving lunatic looks an awful lot like greatness.

Send questions to  DrDBE@attglobal.net or to editor@ntouchaz.com.

Dr. Dina Evan is a licensed Marriage, Family, and Child Therapist in the State of California. She has offices in Phoenix, AZ and Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Evan has won national acclaim as a human rights advocate. She is a columnist for several newspapers and has written five best selling books. For more information you may go to DrDinaEvan.com.