Sy
My friend and colleague Sy Rogers died a couple days ago of cancer. Loved him.
Sy, Alan Medinger, and me stormed Exodus at the same time in the early eighties, each of us supporting one another as officers of a vibrant, God-breathed movement.
A former transgender-identified, Sy was unique among us. He surpassed us in his courage and good humor about the harassment he experienced pre and post Christian commitment.
Heckled as effeminate by some jerk at the airport, Sy took special umbrage as he was with wife Karen. He took off after the bully, ready to pounce, shouting: ‘It beats high heels and make-up, buster!’
I loved how Sy had his pulse on popular culture and could couch the profane within the sacred. A highlight of each Exodus conference was Sy’s ‘weather’ report where he would summarize ebbs and flows in the ex-gay movement using the tools of a TV meteorologist. Superb.
He was a personality; he gifted the global church with holy panache. Every community that welcomed him encountered a powerful infusion of mercy and truth, nothing less than the power of the Gospel to transform lives. No-one was exempt from the gift and challenge of God’s-Kingdom-Come in Sy. Crazy funny too.
Last time I saw Sy was in Orlando, maybe 17-years-ago. I was with my youngest son Sam who had yet to meet someone as clever and kind. To this day Sam imitates how Sy would stick his clenched knuckle in his mouth and wince in feigned horror. We delighted in him as did thousands around the world.
Good man gone. Sad today.
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