Author Archives: John Linscheid

About John Linscheid

John Linscheid learns a bit more each day from his gay old soulmate, friends, and life generally. A writer and activist, John has been an author, activist, editor, pastor, amateur artist, burger flipper and factory worker in the course of his 60 plus years. Over 30 have been spent with his gay old soulmate, with whom he has led workshops, made presentations, built a labyrinth, planted trees, and sought out the company of spirited queer folk--particularly men. They have become fixtures at Germantown Mennonite Church, the western hemisphere's oldest Mennontie congregation and now one of its most progressive. Experience places John in the mystical circles of both Queer and Christian spirituality. If he becomes a doddering old fool, he intends to do so with reckless, joyful abandon.

Remembering Ken

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Ken White 2022

Ken White

Ken M. White (Brattleboro, VT), who counseled gay men to visualize themselves in the palm of a smiling God’s hand, now rests securely in that Divine hand. Ken died from prostate cancer at home on Saturday, January 4, 2025, attended by his partner of 41 years (and husband of 10), John Linscheid, and his little terrier, Chessie. A spirited gay man, Ken was a passionate lover of men, faerie godparent to a queer multitude, stander of stones, profligate gardener, a metal sculptor, mental-health advocate, weaver of queer ritual, and conversational explorer of soul and spirit. He was 73 years old.

Born in Leavenworth, KS, to Dorothy Dean (Chamberlain) White and John Ellis White, Ken spent his youth in Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana, graduating high school from Cut Bank, MT (1969). He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT (1973), and his Master of Arts from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH (1977). He met the love of his life, John Linscheid, in Kansas in 1983, and their life together spanned Topeka, KS, Philadelphia, PA, and finally, Brattleboro, VT.

Together with John he led workshops on gay-male spirituality at Kirkridge Retreat Center, Bangor, PA, and fashioned a ritual to recognize the spiritual wisdom of gay elders including former priest John McNeill. He was a thirty-year member of Germantown Mennonite Church, Philadelphia, PA, where he supported and helped lead its journey to become a fully LGBTQ-inclusive congregation. Over the years, he was also active in the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests

Vermont had a special place in Ken’s heart, starting with camping trips with John, continuing with rehabbing a bright red cottage near Newfane, and culminating in the purchase of a home in Brattleboro in 2017. There his retirement pursuits included gardening, jewelry-making, metal sculpting, and the quest to explore in conversation with others the depths of gay-male, queer, and even straight spirituality. A lover of people, Ken was always one to bring folks together, whether at Temple University, in his Philadelphia home, his church community, or his Brattleboro neighborhood on Chestnut Hill.

Ken had a multi-faceted professional history. He was a foster parent in San Francisco, CA. He was Director of Breakthrough House in Topeka, KS, a multi program agency serving people with serious mental illness. He ministered as student pastor at Topeka’s Metropolitan Community Church. He served as Division Director of Mental Health for COMHAR, Inc. Philadelphia. PA. He served at Temple University School of Social Administration as Director of the Case Management Institute, Director of Continuing Education and Training, and Coordinator of BSW Admissions and Advising. Ken briefly raised Christmas trees on ten acres of family ground in Kansas. He also was a landlord in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA, for twenty years.

Ken’s love for his family, parents, brothers, cousins, and extended relatives gained expression in his research into family history and genealogy. In addition to his husband, Ken is survived by a brother, John Charles White of Topeka, KS; brother-in-law David Linscheid and wife Cynthia of North Newton, KS; brother-in-law Steven Linscheid and partner Anne Crichton of Washington Grove, MD; nephew Aaron Linscheid and wife Caitlin of Fairway, KS; nephew Joel Linscheid and wife Kim Schmidt of Davenport, IA, great-nephews Adam and Coen Linscheid of Fairway, KS; beloved cousins in Kansas, Missouri and Michigan; and many, many chosen family members he touched on life’s journey. Ken was preceded in death by both his parents, a brother Phillip White and his parents-in-law Ruth and J. Willard Linscheid.

Ken chose to be cremated, and a Memorial Gathering was held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, 12:00-2:00 pm, at 118 Elliott Street in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Ken had shown his work.

His body has died. His spirit journeys with us.

To Know This Place as Home

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Man walking in snowWe are Vermonters now, my Gay Old Soulmate and I. We are not Vermonters like people who have lived here their entire lives. We hope to someday be Vermonters like those who moved here long ago. But already we are Vermonters in the sense that we want to be here and we have no other home.

I left being a Kansan somewhere early in the queer revolution. I don’t know if I left Kansas or Kansas left me. At some point my body began to know it as a hostile state. Continue reading →

First Sunday in Lent 2018

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sunset over river with slashes across skyWe,
who once discovered
in a flood that swept away
our self-hatred and alienation,
who now know that being ‘Beloved’
requires the rending
of all our sacred skies—

We,
who were driven into the wilderness,
who learned truth from wild creatures
and spiritual beings— Continue reading →

Ash Wednesday 2018

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snow on a rock with red heart

Sculpture by Ken M. White

Winter gloom and darkness
turn the heart.

Blow Lent’s trumpet if you must,
and tremble.

But before you mourn in solemn assembly
remember

that these ashes
were once profligate palms
that welcomed Love.

Huddle in your prayer closet
marked with ashes as you may,

Love will see you
and prick your heart.

For February’s snow wraps the earth
as wanton Love embraces all its inhabitants.

 

Trudging Home

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dimly lit road at nightI step off the train into Brattleboro’s darkness. It is 5:00 o’clock, but the sun had set before we reached Greenfield. I cross the road and head up Main Street. My briefcase hangs on a strap around my neck. I lift the bag of lunches (food for more than two) packed by Ruth and Beth. And I pull my suitcase behind me. What little traffic has backed up on Main disappears quickly once the train clears the crossing. I am left alone, trudging up the steep sidewalk. Dark store windows follow my progress. Even the restaurants have closed for Thanksgiving.

For reasons too tedious to enumerate, my Gay Old Soulmate and I headed different directions at Thanksgiving this year. I, back to our new home here in Brattleboro. But since I’ve only lived here a week, it doesn’t feel quite like coming home.

Continue reading →

Soul Moves

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Trees at SunsetThe sun has fallen behind the trees as my Gay Old Soulmate and I sit here on the deck in our little queer retreat cottage. If all goes well, we soon will leave behind the house we have lived in for twenty-seven years in the city we have lived in for thirty-two. We will move to a different house in a different town a few miles away from where we sit now.

Only an occasional bird call or distant dog’s bark breaks the silence. My soul has lived in unsettled quiet for some time now. Continue reading →

Without Desire?

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Can I be a gay man without desire? Without a lust for other men?

Today I will be given Lupron, a form of Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT) or “hormone treatment.”  It will block my body’s production of the testosterone that fuels the prostate cancer lurking within me–and destroy my libido.

How will I be gay then? Continue reading →

Matthew 4*

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At an age (many years ago) that some Millennials are now—and that Jesus was then—I strode eagerly into the wilderness.desert rocks and grasses  And when the tempter told me to prove I was a child of God, by changing my queer to straight, I pulled my Bible from my hip pocket and shot Scripture right back at them. (Not to mention that they’d kinda got it bread-to-stones and not the other way around.) Continue reading →

Lent

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ash crossSpeak to me with an ordinary voice
Ashes to ashes
dust to dust
You are dust and
to dust you shall return

Ashes to ashes
dust to dust
My life is ashes.
My world is dust.

I seek a gracious one
the self-giving one
the forerunner
crying my wilderness.

I seek the washing flood
the clear liquid pool
a new water
cleansing my nakedness

Continue reading →

No One to Call

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phone dialWe are home, my Gay Old Soulmate and I.  And there is no one to call.  No number to dial.  No one to pick up the phone at the other end and hear my report, “we’re back home in Philadelphia” (really meaning, “we’re safely home”). Mom is dead.

We three sons were with her when she died.  Although she suffered little pain, the cancer that killed her made much of her last months miserable.  She had complained several times that she didn’t understand why dying had to take so long.  She was ready.  And we readily released her.  Hers had been a good life, a full life. I won’t say it was a good ending—but it wasn’t a bad one.  And now she no longer lives there, back home, in Kansas.  I find it hard to wrap my head around the absence, much less my heart.

My father died in 1992 after a long, pain-filled struggle with prostate cancer.  About three months later, my Gay Old Soulmate and I were awakened by a call informing us that my uncle had also died—unexpectedly of a heart attack.  Since he and his family lived about an hour’s drive from us, Mom (still grieving my father’s death) flew out immediately to Philadelphia to spend time with my aunt.  My Gay Old Soulmate and I had also rushed to my aunt’s house when we heard the news. So when Mom arrived to stay in our guest room, I apologized that we had not properly cleaned the house in preparation.

“My house is always clean,” she replied.  “No one lives there anymore.”

That quiet sentence, a vessel of bottomless absence, pierced my heart then.  It has forever since, each time I recall the words.  And now, it comes back to me more achingly deep than ever, because, we have made it home, and there is no one to call.