By Ann Fontaine
Sunday, October 12, 2008 was the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. Many churches and others are holding memorial services and recalling the terrible events of the weeks prior to his death. Wyoming, where I live, is searching its conscience once again about how this son of our state was cruelly beaten and left to die tied to a fence post on the prairie. As I read the news articles and essays about this event I wonder about how a man becomes a myth. I wonder if the Matthew known by his parents, family and friends is slipping from their hands and hearts.
Today, as I read an essay by someone who attended the funeral, I see that already the location of the funeral no longer matters. Details are unimportant in the construction of a myth – only the things that build the myth. The details still matter to those who were there, who actually knew Matthew as friend, cousin, son, nephew. Details like the name of the church and the town of the service does not matter to the wider world. The local church, however, still reverberates with the decision to host the service. The town saw the horror of those who hate gay men embodied in a group of church people who stood outside in the park across the street. As the adults and children held up their explicit and hate filled signs – others from the community dressed as angels and held up their huge white wings to shield the family and other mourners.
Not long after Matthew’s death I was talking with his uncle. He was saying that he often did not recognize the person who was already being spoken of as a saint by those whose need to have an icon was stronger than the reality of the person. Matthew Shepard was a young man, a college student, fun and loving and trying out life and all that it offers. Now he is forever the young gay male, beaten and left to die, the embodiment of all the fear of living in a world that still kills those who only want to live and love as others are allowed to live and love.
Is this icon-ization a bad thing or is it inevitable? Is it good to have a focus and an example when working to change society? Is it good for those who fear to have their fears externalized? Does it matter that the details are lost in the mythmaking? Do those who were close to the event lose something in this process or can they privately hold on to the one they knew in life? Do they give over their Matt to the larger community and find peace and healing in the work that is done by his story?
Sometimes I wonder, is that what happened to Jesus?
The Rev. Ann Fontaine lives in Wyoming and keeps the blog what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.