Swinging on the Garden Gate

Every story begins with a word. As a young woman, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew carried a word within her so potent that it spread through every artery and vein. But she carried it in secret until she was shown a different way and the word inside her turned restless and eager. A beautiful and powerful memoir of coming of age and coming out bisexual, SWINGING ON THE GARDEN GATE describes a period of time in award-winning writer and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew's life where she came to know her bisexuality as an embodied manifestation of divinity. Andrew not only reconciles her Methodist faith with her sexuality but realises that her body is holy, her sexuality is holy, and the word she carried within her has always been holy. The spark of spirit Andrew identifies in her body she also finds throughout the solid matter of life-in childhood, nature, creativity, loss, death, and especially the coming out process. In addition to being a personal journey through memory, Andrew brings a distinctly queer feminist lens to Christian teachings and answers the question hundreds of young people have posed to her over the years, "Is it possible to be both queer and spiritual?" The act of bringing hidden, personal truths to light is transformational, and for Andrew, a universal calling. This stunning second edition includes a new note from Andrew as she looks back on its twenty-year history.