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Young Adults of Dignity New York

Our next young adult meeting is March 4, 2012 5:00pm - 7:00pm at the Center. 208 West 13th St, New York, NY
 
Guest Speaker: Bob Anthony, Spirituality.
 
Things to Do:  Walk with Team 14 Dignity/New York on May 20th for the AIDS Walk NYC.   
 
  
 

Please let us know if you are planning to attend and if you will bring a friend.

Questions or Information: email YoungAdults@dignityny.org

 

Report from our February 19, 2012 meeting: All about the 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, Baltimore, Maryland, January 25–29. and continuing our discussion on "Putting Social Justice Into Action."

Report from our February 12, 2012 meeting  Topic: "Putting Social Justice Into Action." 

Jamie recapped the Catholic Social Justice Teaching of the Church reminding us that we encounter Jesus in the poor and we are the ones who are transformed.  In her speaking engagements she often is asked how to get young people to church.  Her response is to engage them in social justice work.  Some actions that we will work on are: Walk with the larger Dignity/NY community in the upcoming AIDS walk, May 20th.   We hope to have some fundraising events for this cause.  We are looking are the various homeless LGBT programs across the city to see how we can get involved as a group.  Our discussions on an "It Gets Better" video continued. 

Report from our January 15, 2012 meeting

Topic:  Catholic Social Justice Teaching of the Church. 

Jamie Manson gave an overview of the social justice documents beginning with 1891's Rerum Novarum.  In addition to church teaching, she talked about Dorothy Day, telling stories about her and explaining her understanding of the poor as the body of Christ.

Report from our December 18, 2011 meeting

Topic: Who is God for me?
Report from our December 4, 2011 meeting
Topic:  How we see ourselved as part of the church community?  We are continuing our discussion from November 20th.  Many spoke of their experience of going back to their families and thier experience of church.  We wait in prayerful anticipation for a church who will one day be open and accepting of us.
Report from our November 20, 2011  meeting.
Topic:  How do we see ourselves as Catholics in our Catholic Church?  To prepare for our meeting the group was asked to read Jamie's keynote address  Recognizing the Church We already Are http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/recognizing-church-we-already-are
Jamie uses today's Sunday parable of Matthew 25:31-46 that we will be using at our Liturgy for the Transgender Day of Remembrance .  During the Gospel reading today, 12 Dignity members will help our Presider with the reflection.    We spoke about how we prayer individually and how we pray communally during mass and devotional prayer.  Our next meeting will continue the conversation by talking about the Social Justice teachings of the Church.
Report from our November 6th meeting.
Topic: Bullying and Support.
 
Using Matthew 25:31-46, our stories and experiences for discussion, we can help fill out the trans day of remembrance liturgy. Here are some discussion ideas: Who in your life has stood up for you, helped you, or accepted you? Have you ever experienced bullying or danger because of your sexuality? How have you dealt with it? How as Christians can we respond?
 
We also discussed "It Gets Better" videos for Dignity/New York to help fight bullying.
Report from our October 16th meeting.

Topic:  "The Gender Question"

-Our discussion was about Gender, and if there is a difference between gender related behaviors in gay vs. lesbian relationships. Of course the gender discussion can be had for ages and involves so many different things.  We mostly conversed about the stereotypes that arise about what roles each gender plays.  Can gays and lesbians relate to each other and find the opposite sex attractive?  We spoke about "masculine traits" vs "feminine traits." We discussed our views and societies views of labeling people.  The topic of becoming "gayer" after coming out was also tackled.  Why does that happen? What is that about?

Report from our September 25th meeting.

Hello friends!

It was great seeing everyone at our YAD meeting last night and it was so nice having such a big group!  I have three items of interest:

  1. The next More than a Monologue panel discussion is this coming Saturday.  It's focused on LGBT youth (teens) and the suicide crisis.  Please note that the keynote speaker is DAN SAVAGE!!!  This event is free and includes lunch, but you have to reserve a seat.
  2. We set our next meeting for October 16th at 5pm at the Center.  This meeting could be a planning meeting or a regular meeting
  3. Robert and Bill both participated in the Dignity USA Young Adult Caucus conference call on Monday night and they told the YAC about all the great things happening in NY.   They will fill us in about the conversation at our next meeting.  If you'd like to join this group, here's the web page and Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DignityYoungAdultCaucus

Report from our August 14th meeting.

 Topic: How we "live out" our spirituality in our relationships (i.e., How does our spirituality influence --or not-- whom we date, how we handle or look at tough situations like breakups, or what makes us happy in a relationship).  

This month a few of the young adults managed to clear some time in our scattered, distracted schedules to hang out, eat some pie (pizza pie that is) and throw around ideas and experiences regarding faith and relationships.  Over the past couple of months we've kept our discussion themes loose and fun.  We've taken pleasure both in each other's company and in forming a safe place where we can love each other well.  This month, as a result of our growing camaraderie, we were able to go a little bit deeper into understanding how God sees us as perfect and beautiful.  We talked about how we can take that unconditional love, that knowledge of being specifically and wonderfully made, and apply that to our confidence in meeting other LBGT peers. 

 Report from our July 17th meeting .
 
Topic:  "How do we engage or respond to negative voices in the church regarding our sexuality? Can we remain hopeful? What impact do these voices have on our lives?"
 
During the last Dignity Young Adults meeting, we discussed topics drawn upon from experiences some of us had at the convention: We discussed the mission of Dignity as it relates to its engagement with the Church, how we can deal with a hostile church as individuals, our experiences with straight allies within the Church- both supportive lay friends and family as well as supportive clergy and people in religious life, and finally, a coming out discussion. We evaluated a question about Dignity's mission- Should it challenge the Church more directly and aggressively or focus on creating a safe space to directly minister to its members?  Can we do both? Later on, as we moved on to more personal experiences with family and straight allies, we discussed the Church's view of same sex relationships as "less" or "not love"  and talked about how the Church's philosophical construct of natural law (St. Thomas Aquinas) simply reduced its purpose and function as procreation and biology. This view, frustratingly, does not emphasize the relational aspect of sexuality. The evening ended in a more personal discussion about a member's plans to come out to her family soon with support and advice from other members
 
Report from our June 12th meeting:
 
The Young Adults of Dignity meeting Sunday, June 12th was amazing! Everyone that was there came together to share thoughts of love, religion, relationships, equality and more. We also discussed some names or acronyms for our group. If you have any ideas for us please let us know. Towards the end of the meeting there were specific jobs given out to those who want to be apart of the Pride Liturgy. There was also a discussion about marching in the parade, and attending the DignityUSA convention in D.C.
 

Let us know if you would like to participate in the Pride Liturgy, the Witness at the Cathedral, the March, or the upcoming DignityUSA convention  in D.C .