From: Stephen Lingwood
I was shocked to read in the BU School of Theology alum magazine that Alex had died. I had not kept up with him, and I only knew him for one year when we both at BU, but he was certainly someone who I remember, and who touched my life in that short period.

I have memories of Alex in feminist theology classes, and in the BU pub afterwards talking about queer theology, coming out, England, life and everything. He had a great energy and passion that was infectious, though he would sometime rush in where angels would fear to tread.

I remember a get together at Alex’s flat where we watched “Paris is Burning” with an impromptu discussion about it afterwards that he directed – like the theology professor he should have been. I stayed up with the last few people until 4am that night. I can’t remember what we talked about, but it was a fun night.

Life is full of small connections we make with people along the way. I’m glad I knew Alex.

Thanks so much for setting up this website, which has allowed me to grieve a little bit from afar. And my thoughts to those who feel the loss more than me.

Stephen Lingwood,
Bolton, England

From: Larisa Reznik
I think about you every time I make Earl Grey tea! I loved our library tea time--thermos to thermos. I made some this morning and wished we could sit together, drink it, and gossip about boys and politics. You know, some tea and sympathy :)

From: Marc Solomon
Alex,

I think about you, weep about you, miss you this Christmas. If you were here, you’d still be joking caddily about how, if I really cared about you, I’d have bought you that winter coat at Barney’s that you thought you looked so good in (and you did!)….that you wanted so badly…that you convinced me to go to the Barney’s warehouse sale in NYC with you to try to find!!!

It was a year ago that I came to Chicago for nine cold days. You were going through a lot, were very raw, and yet saw so clearly. We worked out, walked and ran in the snow, explored Boystown, ate out, watched movies, fought, laughed, cried, and talked and talked and talked.

I miss you, Alex. I miss your stubbornness, your passion, your high expectations for me, your love, your crazy, your style, your laugh (I loved your laugh!), your fun, your company. I miss your deaf ear (I was thinking today how I feel strange walking alongside anyone on their left side, since I was so used to walking on your right)—or as you called it as you picked out the seat that allowed you to hear the best, your ear feng shui. I miss your parties—the ones that just formed around you spontaneously. I miss your joy on the dance floor. I miss your company, your love for making me laugh. Who else would say, “It’s time for Eeyore to get his party hat on,” trying to cheer me up from being mopey.

From: Paul Gorrell
At the recently held American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago, the Gay Men's Studies in Religion Group observed a minute of silence in Alex's memory. He was a rising star in our group and we miss him dearly.

From: Xochitl Alvizo
There are so many ways in which Alex is always present, so close by. Whenever we had a party at my house and Alex would come over, there was no way he was leaving until we danced some merengue together, Elvis Crespo's "Suavemente." Merengue is hard to dance partnered - at least for me! But he and I always danced that song together, usually a couple of times with the radio full-blast. I'm sure it must have been annoying for everyone else there! haha - but we didn't care, we loved to take over the dance floor (livingroom!) and spin and dance all over the place. Gosh how I miss that. He was my little bit of home, my latino grounding here in Boston. Whenever I would be all homesick, or feel all out of place cause Boston and the people here felt so culturally different to me, he loved going into his rants about "white people" and how messed up they were! lol. I would laugh so hard. He would say all the things I would never let myself even think, much less express in words! But he loved to rant and rave. Always with a lot of added drama of course, he loved the drama.

Lately I just wanna be so mad at him. I see a picture of him and I just wanna tell him off. Why'd you have to go fool?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=34798064&id=927325

From: Dustin Smith
While I only knew Alex a very short time and mostly only through e-mail he was a huge inspiration on my life. I was connected with Alex through one of his great friend, Dr. Angela Aguoyo, whom I took various rhetoric classes with at Eastern Illinois University. While studying under Angela, I did much research on the gay rights movement and Angela felt that Alex would be a great resource for my writings. I was very happy to be connect with Alex and was lucky enough to have him read over my work and help me to make it stronger. More importantly, I had the opportunity to sit down with Alex for a couple hours one day and had an amazing, intellectual conversation about queer studies. This short, conversation has had much impact on my life and continues to be a huge determining factor on my decision to attend graduate school or not. Alex and I shared a lot of the same ideas for research and I assured Angela if I do go on to study the areas Alex and I shared interest in I would be sure to do it in his honor. We have lost a truly inspirational, extremely intelligent human being when we lost Alex. I am sad that I know longer have him as an intellectual help in my future studies, but hope to do him proud.

From: Caroline Rankin
Trying the link to Facebook photo album again... the previous link did not work....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2214863&l=00424&id=12929046

From: Caroline Rankin
I took some pictures while I was in Boston for Alex's memorial. I wanted to capture a little bit of what it felt like to be sorrounded by people Alex loved so much.

The photos are posted in Facebook. YOu don't need to be a member to see the pictures. if you run into any trouble, let me know- rankinct@gmail.com. Copy and paste this address into your web browser: http://www.facebook.com/album.phpaid=2214863&l=00424&id=12929046

I hope you enjoy them
With love,
Caroline

From: Caroline Rankin
Wonderful amazing Alex- the memories of him sort of blur together in this flash of laughter and deep conversations. That's how he was. I remember him endlessly watching the Tour de France, and able to answer my novice questions with wit and insight. I remember him always asking how I was doing with an intentional eye contact that let me know he actually meant the question and expected an honest reply. I remember him diving into gay dating in a way this straight girl will never be able to emulate! I remember him most the last time I saw him in February 08: he was vulnerable and curious, entitled and generous, charming and shocking, serious and mischevious.
I miss him so much.
I love Alex forever.

From: Andrew Hardy
I met Alex at LSE while he was there for a year in 1997. Although I wasn't convinced of Alex at the beginning he won me over and we became inseparable. I have such fond memories of that year and the long weekends we would spend together. We became true soulmates during that time and the conversations we had over a bottle of port or some gin and tonic were always the best!

Conversations with Alex were always enlightening and challenging. He always had a new inspirational view of things which always challenged my previous (mis)conceptions. He has been a real inspiration to me.

I had not seen Alex for a long time. I saw him again in 1999 when I stayed with him in Berkeley and he took me to Palm Springs for a weekend and again in 2003 when he came to Chile to see me. I was really really excited to be seeing him again soon as I am getting married in 6 weeks. He had been planning to come over a few days earlier to Scotland so we could spend some time together with his partner.

He will be truly missed at the wedding. I feel truly sad that he won't be there to enjoy it.

He will be forever missed and always in my heart and mind.

From: Timothy Stewart-Winter
I met Alex at the beginning of fall quarter at the Gender & Sexuality Studies Workshop at the U of C, early last fall. We stood in the hallway after the end of the workshop and began arguing about LGBT politics. The argument continued a few days later over a very long lunch at the Medici on 57th Street. We were fast friends. Queer politics was a passion we shared, one we could discuss at great length and from a thousand different angles, rooted in our quite different disciplinary perspectives. I felt a comradeship with him in feeling relatively comfortable in academia, yet also feeling passionately that the academy should speak to the world beyond its walls. On a campus that tends to value the cerebral perhaps to a fault, he radiated a kind of moral confidence in gossip and theatricality. At a university with a strong penchant for neutrality, universality and dispassion, he had no doubt at all that he could not only be a scholar-activist, but would do better at both of those projects better than if he had only pursued one of them.

I got to spend a long day with Alex, a week before he died. That Saturday morning, he met me at a conference at the Center on Halsted, arriving early just so he could be in the audience when I delivered my paper. We had lunch and then drove around the North Side a little bit, on a beautiful, sunny day, talking about neighborhoods he might move to in the fall. We spent a couple of lazy hours sitting on my couch, listening several times to the new Madonna album, ‘Hard Candy,’ which had not yet been released. Alex really intensely loved the album, and I know I’ll always associate it with him. Later that evening, we went out in Boystown, and the hit single from the album, “4 Minutes,” was playing in Roscoe’s when we went dancing there. Now when I hear the song, one line reverberates louder than the others: “But if I die tonight/At least I can say I did what I wanted to do/Tell me, how ’bout you?” It’s no comfort at all, of course—it won’t take away the shocking and painful fact that Alex isn’t coming back. But at least we can say he did what he wanted to do. I have the sense Alex lived with great purpose and optimism for most of his thirty-four years on earth, and certainly, in his last year, more than most of us do.

From: Myriam Renaud
I met Alex at the University of Chicago's Divinity School where I'm currently a second-year Ph.D. student in Theology. Alex and I crossed paths in the Divinity School and had a class together. I only spoke to Alex very briefly, and just a few times, but he made a lasting impression--how could he not! I was struck by his friendliness, his ease of being, his warmth, his obvious smarts. I wish I'd taken advantage of opportunities to have longer conversations with him--I'd believed that we'd be spending the next few years together in our Ph.D. studies and that we'd get plenty of opportunities to talk. I'm incredibly sad that those opportunities will never come. Mostly though I'm incredibly sad for his family and his friends. I'm also incredibly sad for the discipline of theology which has been robbed of his intellectual talents and of his distinctive voice.

From: Ana Blanch
I´m Alex´s Aunt, it´s very hard for me to make this letter, because I´m so sad, I don´t believe it!!
The last time when I can see to Alex, it was 3 years ago, I talked with Alex and I had the opportunity to hold him, I have a lot of memories from Alex!! but I want to keep his beautiful smile, tenacity and firmness, I have a letter that he wrote to me when he lived in Boston, It´s my treasure, Thanks to God for give a Nephew like Alex, I just have to close my eyes, and I can see him.
He´s alive in my heart, "I´m sure that I can see you again"

LOVE YOU FOREVER,

From: Karina Gonzalez
Mr. Hivoltze taught my 7th grade class at Redeemer Lutheran School in South Gate, California. He was such a wonderful soul. For our 10 page paper (Only Mr. Hivoltze would have A class of 7th and 8th grade kids write a paper with a thesis and an outline...haha) i chose the topic of witchcraft. I got a B on my paper, while other students got A's. When we were discussing the paper, he held mine up and said "This is what a college paper looks like." He told me despite my grammar errors, my paper was college material. That has always stayed with me. Now i am in college and whenever i write a paper, i remember him and his teachings. Also he sent my to the corner on one occasion for talking to much.
He told me how i was one of his favorite students, and how i always made him smile, because i was so witty and quirky.

Knowing of his passing was a great shock to me. Before i found out, i had been thinking a lot about Alex lately; how he was and i wanted to meet up with him to show him how far i had made it.

He will always be in my thoughts.
<3

From: Joseph Hall
Alex came twice to Beirut to help our team with a research project. It would be hard to overstate his contribution to the project and to the lives of the young researchers that he mentored, coached and lovingly confronted.

He was a consummate professional and a delightful person, outrageous. Unapologetically real.

My heartfelt condolences go to Alex's family and friends around the world. His Beirut friends will miss him terribly.

From: Natalie Sydorenko
I met Alex only a few times at NCA conventions. I reviewed one of his papers and responded to another one. I remember his passion, gentleness, kindness, and enthusiasm in both his papers and his interactions with others. I read here that his birthday was May 2. Mine is May 7th. He was two years younger than me. I feel blessed to be here today writing this, and I know the world was blessed by Alex's presence and calm knowing of his purpose, even though he left us in form much too young. My prayers go out to his loved ones. May his work and legacy live on. God Bless.
To Light in the Darkness, Natalie Sydorenko (Hiram College)

From: Peter Savastano
I first met Alex two years ago at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. He delivered one of the most beautiful and intelligent papers on queer theology that I had heard in years in one of the sessions of the Gay Men's Issues In Religion Group, of which I was at the time a Steering Committee member. Alex was absolutely charming, filled with kindness and incredible intellectual and theological "lust" (yes, it was more than just gusto or enthusiasm, it really had the quality of "lust" in the best sense of the word). The following year Alex and I met again at the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group Sessions and then at the reception sponsored by the same group. I remember Alex telling me he was very seriously considering becoming Roman Catholic. Having been raised Catholic myself, I totally understood why he would be drawn to the Catholic Church. After all, for a queer theologian to become a Roman Catholic is, indeed, the quintessential queerest thing to do. When I learned of Alex's death, I was totally shocked and deeply saddened. We had lost a brilliant thinker, a very generous yet down to earth soul who seemed to have a strong mystical streak. One of the last things he told me before we parted from San Diego last November was that he was shortly on his way to a Jesuit retreat. Any gay man who has the sensibilities to go on a spiritual retreat of any kind is special in my book. I sensed a spiritual depth about Alex that shone through his eyes. They really did seem the lamp of his huge soul. I will miss him and the conversations we had, most especially because I hardly had the chance to get to know him better. Alex, wherever you are I hope you are swimming in blissful peace, love and total liberation.

From: M M
I never knew Alex. Stumbled on his obituary and this page by chance. This is simply to comfort those who knew and loved him and who are probably trying to make sense of his untimely death, that even though he is no longer physically present, he has the power to inspire. Simply reading about his life has given me the courage to live more purposefully. It's a message I needed very much at this my life.

From: Paul Gorrell
The first time I saw Alex was at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) at the Gay Men's Issues Group. Having been a member of the group for ten years, I was thrilled to hear this new, fresh, young face deliver one of the best papers I had heard in years. I sat there believing that I was hearing the person who would best represent the future of this group. He was going to be a star in the field.
Happily, I got to speak with him the next day, learn more about his interesting journey and debate the merits of belonging to the Catholic Church. It was such an exciting meeting.
The next year in San Diego, Alex greeted me with praise of a piece I had written a long time ago. It was such a charming thing to do and I deeply appreciated the developing relationship. He was becoming a friend, something he did with much more ease than I. He had wonderful entrepeneurial gifts and it was terrific to watch him develop in his studies.
When I heard that we lost Alex, I felt completely devastated. He was such a cherished person. Happening onto this website at the very time that friends in Boston are gathering makes me feel connected to all of those who loved him.
The Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group will dedicate it AAR sessions and party to Alex's memory when we gather in Chicago in October. He will always be part of our future.

From: Jessica Moreno
Dear cousin, I am so proud of you although the distance did't give us the opportunity to spend more time together.
I mainly have much memories of breath and advice to make decisions.
The last time I saw you was in my wedding day three years ago, today I found a photo of the first time that you took to me to dance, thanks for those moments.
It is difficult to understand why the most talented and so happy people by the life go away first but God has a plan for everything and I only have left to pray much by your family and friends who as much wants to you.

From: Clair Linzey
Alex was one of the first people I met in class at HDS. We got to talking about queer theology, especially the issue of gay bishops in the Anglican church. We had a passionate discussion about the issues, and I asked if he'd read my father's work on the subject -- he told me it was on his hit list. When I went home I got him a copy, and planned to give it to him (not that he knew). But in the business of things I forgot to give it to him -- the book now lies in my room waiting for him, a poignant reminder. What I will remember most about Alex, even though I did not know him well, is his hope and his encouragement - his ability to inspire others. I just wish I could have told him so and given him the book.

From: Steve Legg
I first met Alex when has was a masters student at Homerton College, Cambridge, where I was a research fellow. He sauntered up to us at a formal hall and before the first course was finished was pronouncing to a rather stunned table on the fundamental bases of queer theology and the need for a more radical gay politics. From that night on he became my closest friend for his short time in Cambridge. He somehow managed to make the dankest gay bar in the fens seem anthropologically interesting, and showed the teens at the weekly gay club how to "do" the gay scene. After he left Cambridge we only got to see each other three or four times, but it was remarkable how quickly one regained that incredible sense of intimacy that seemed to ooze from Alex's every pore. He seemed to understand so completely the dynamics of friendship, companionship, intellectual partnership and flirting, and to somehow be able to do them all at the same time. I will always remember him, especially every morning when I use the ridiculously expensive kettle he bequeathed me, which he had bought to filter our "awful English marsh water". I'll miss you my prince.

Stxxxx

From: Lindsay Stillwagon (Gregory)
I met Alex at Club Cafe, I was his waitress one night and towards the end of the night I was able to sit down and just really chat with him and Marc. I told him my great story of why I no longer drink apple martinis thanks to a crazy catfish. He later convince me I should have one. I grew so extremely fond of him after that night. I mean after all,he brought back my love of apple martinis.
Anytime he came in I was so excited and wished that I was not working so I could just hang out with him. I was so sad when I found out he was moving to Chicago, I just kept thinking to myself, dang, what am I going to do without having Alex pop in to Club Cafe every now and then. He seriously would just brighten my day everytime I saw him. Anytime I came to work and he was sitting at the bar, I would just run and hug him so hard. He is one of the most genuine people I have ever met, and I am so devastated that he is no longer with us. My heart goes out to his family, his friends and Marc. I am so sorry that I will not be here for the memorial, but I truly wish I could be.

From: Sally Stamper
I had only begun to know Alex. He and I met at the div school where both us of were studying theology - in fact, just the week before he died we had spoken briefly in the hall outside our shared advisor's door, Alex approaching with 'Theologians in the hall!", then calling over his shoulder (pointing), "We HAVE to get together. Us theologians." I'm glad I was an "us" with Alex, even briefly, and I am so sad that we will not have the opportunity to know one another better. I have treasured the time he gasped with characteristically over-generous appreciation for a project about which I was unfeeling uncertain. His courage, but even more than that, his hope will stay with me. Swift Hall is less lively without his physical presence.

From: Alix Izabella Jerome
I don't have a memory of Alex, I have a friend to whom Alex was a beloved friend and mentor. I wish I could've met Alex when he was alive because I would've thanked him for bringing my best friend out of the darkness, shame, and terror that he felt, trapped in his fundamentalist upbringing and being queer.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Alex for his love and support and understanding of my friend when he needed it oh so very much and the rest of us could not reach him.

Incidentally, I share a birthday with Alex, I am also an Alix, a girl however, but still, it is an honour and a privilege to share a birthday, a name, and most of all to see the influence and work that Alex did, reflected in my best friend's work and life.

Tashakoor, Alex jan, I wish that I could've shared a drink and conversation with you and had just a moment to thank you for giving me my best friend back and helping him to find his way.

XO

From: Denisse Moreno
I am good premium Alex I live in Mexico and since we learned the sad news have not stopped thinking about it and although it was just time that we were together
were the best, the last time I saw him was made as two and a half years because he came to the wedding of another premium and is one of the best memories I have
He was able to meet my son and we talk of many things but the only thing I can say is
I am proud to know that I always had a cousin who always listened to me and I am very proud of the accomplishments that he had and all that he do.Alex always going to miss you receives a kiss anywhere you are with love Denisse

From: Jim Merritt
I only met Alex once and he made a lasting impression on me. My prayers are with his family and all those who love him. Blessings on you.

Rev. Jim Merritt
Cambridge/Orlando

From: Lily Jimenez
First let me express my sincere gratitude to everyone. Your time, your help, your hugs, your love for Alex mean the world to me and my family.

My beloved brother Alex and I were only 10.5 months apart in age. He was my FIRST friend and my BEST friend. He taught me so much about so many things. He was as passionate, loving, busy and full energy as young boy as he was as a man. My world as I knew it has changed forever. A part of me will always be void. I'm trying so hard to hold on to the joy Alex brought into my life. I was truly blessed to have Alex as my friend but as my blood. I miss you birdie.

From: Andrew Tripp
My first real memory of Boston University was a visitation day before I had even applied. I met Alex and he told me as a Unitarian Universalist I had to come to BU to help queer up the place. I ended up coming to BU as my seminary and was glad to have a year long friendship with Alex, including being with him during the constitutional convention and his conference on queering ecclesiology. Alex had a lot of humor, maybe because humor is one of the ways we deal with pain. I will remember the jokes. I will remember the smile.

From: Elizabeth G
I got to know Alex in a few classes at Harvard Divinity School and through the wonderful conference he organized last year. I was amazed by his presence - so full of life and hope and snaz. I loved the way he was always bringing queer-indecent-feminist theologies to the table, making them a part of the conversation and not something that is covered in the second-to-last class of the semester as an after thought. He was rare that he listened when people spoke, not just waiting until they are done to say what he had to say, but really listened. With his eyes, and ears and body. His enthusiasm was contagious. His spirit was bright. I did not know him well. But enough to know that I would like to know him more and that it is a devastating and painful loss to queer theology and to the world in general, that Alex is not with no longer with us in body. I trust that he remains with us in spirit.

From: David Newheiser
For anyone who was unable to attend the memorial service in Chicago, I have posted the program here: http://in.memoriam.alex.googlepages.com/home

From: Mark Jordan
Written for U of Chicago Memorial Service (Prof. Jordan was a mentor and advisor to Alex...Alex aspired to carry on Mark Jordan's work and collaborate with him to advance thinking and scholarship in queer theology).

The last time Alex and I shared a dinner was at the AAR in San Diego. He wrote a few days before to schedule a meal, as he always did. And I replied--as I always did: "I'm too busy, I have too many appointments, I'm old and tired." And Alex fired back: "I'm coming by in a cab to pick you up and take you away so that you have at least two hours of queer life during the meeting." So he did. We wandered around San Diego's version of Boys' Town, under wispy fog, until we found a restaurant stylish enough in its decor and hip enough in its personnel. Then we talked theology and vocation for an animated hour, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. Over the course of that conversation, so many projects were placed on the table--many more of them than of the Asian-fusion tapas Alex had ordered. To do: a volume from the conference on queer ecclesiology at Boston University; an international institute with Marcella Althaus-Reid and Mario Ribas; a collaborative volume that would be the definitive liturgical study of the 1990s dance club. In that expansive hour, as always with Alex at his best, all the ugly obstacles dropped--all the painful, violent confrontations; the homophobic smears; the smugly 'orthodox' insults to the very possibility of queer theology--it all fell back in his ardent hope for a redeeming future. I will miss Alex's hope most of all--the hope he embodied in his talent, now bitterly cut off, but also the hope he could eliicit in others, even the old and tired.

From: jim bernauer
I came to know Alex when he requested that I guide him in a readings and research course on Foucault, theology and sexuality in the Spring of 2006 atBoston College. We spent many hours together in conversation that semester, far more than I normally would devote to an independent study and the reason was that I was learning so much from him. He became at least as much my teacher as I was his. And over the many meals and conversations we had during that time and since then we became friends. We were supposed to have dinner together this week. I mourn his physical disappearance while I am consoled by his spiritual presence. He has entered into the silent life of the God he sought to explore and enjoy.

Alex had a rich and unusual combination of talents. Sure, he was smart and could write well and he had done a great deal of reading with a critical spirit. He had had fine academic and personal experiences both here and abroad. But he was also deeply rooted in a community and he came to religious thought from within a passionate fellowship of concern. He made me much more aware of how significant that social dimension is for good religious thinking. And it was precisely that community dimension that enabled Alex to cross easily the frontiers that all too often separate rigorous academic theology from the more extensive concerns of social analysis and cultural studies as well as spirituality. He did an outstanding paper for me that demonstrated his ability to master some key concepts and arguments in Foucault’s thought but what I admired even more was his spirit of originality. His openness to the “messy” in experience provided a very productive standing point from which to explore human desires and Christian yearnings.

Alex possessed another talent which I find both attractive and rare, the ability to communicate to a wider audience beyond the academic community. I saw him as a developing public intellectual with the capacity to have biblical and theological writings speak to our contemporary experience not with a scolding voice but with a loving attachment to creation. I looked forward to Alex making major contributions to Christian theology and to the many communities in which he was a brother. May his spiritual impact on us help to fulfill that hope. Alex, thank you for your friendship and may you rest in God’s love for all eternity.

Jim Bernauer

From: Amy Young
I met Alex through his close friend, Angela Aguayo, about 5 years ago. I had seen him before at the National Communication ASsociation meeting, but I really got to know him when we "floated" with little pomp/circumstance and much beer down the Guadalupe River out of New Braunfels, TX. Our motley little crew took 6 hours or some crazy business to finish up, but I think we settled the question of whether Angelina Jolie is a force for good or evil (who cares, I believe, was the answer from Alex).

When I heard the news, I was stunned and have sort of wandered around this week in a fog. Alex was a gift to the world--my friend Jaime calls him "sparkly" and means it in the best sense of the word. I will miss Alex and I hope that his family and close friends can find joy in their memories of him. Cheers.

From: Lucas Wall
I met Alex several times when I lived in Boston through my friend Sebastian. It was kind a surprise last Friday night (May 2) when I ran into Alex at Nellie's Sports Bar here in Washington, where I was celebrating my friend John's birthday. Turned out it was Alex's birthday as well. A few of us high-energy folks took both birthday boys out for a great night of dancing at Town.

It was an absolute shock to hear the news only a few days later that Alex had passed away after returning home to Chicago from D.C. I did not know Alex that well, but I feel so saddened by his death. Only a week ago we were dancing in a line of six or seven guys, trying to lure a closeted kid from Missouri into letting loose and having some fun. Alex lit up the room with his vibrancy. I'm glad that he was able to have such an esctatic night out on what would turn out to be among the last hours of his life.

From: Sebastian White
I met Alex almost a half a decade ago and he kept me in stitches ever since (his obsession with my friend Mike, a complete opposite, was among the more humorous aspects of our friendship). He was full of contradictions and full of endless surprises. He was a complete intellectual, a complete dandy, and one of the best listeners ever. And no one in Boston ever had bigger hair than he did. More than a few bottles of red wine were downed on my roof deck, musing over eastern religions, bad clothes, sexual politics, our shared experiences at Boston University, and the latest South End gossip (he had me rolling on the floor when he discussed the merits of colonic irrigation). Alex brought many people into my life (oh the stories we could tell!), and expanded all our lives. For that he will be missed.

From: Armando Alvarado
I did know Alex very well, however I had the privilege to have met him while he was in Dallas, Texas at a Latino/a National Meeting - Perkins School of Theology. My impression of him was pleasing and he was filled with energy that generated from the Holy Spirit. My condolences go out to his family and friends.

In Cristo,
Armando Alvarado, Jr.
Perkins School of Theology
Dallas, Texas

From: Cameron Partridge
I first met Alex at the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus graduation party in May of 2006. He picked my brain about places to study queer theology, and shared that he would be applying to programs the coming fall. A few months later, he ended up taking a course for which I was a teaching fellow at Harvard Divinity School, "Feminist and Gender Theory in Systematic Theology," and he landed in my section. That section went a mile-a-minute never a dull moment with Alex there! At some point that winter he told me about a conference he was organizing at Boston University called "Queering the Church." He'd asked me to write a piece for the anthology that was to follow the conference, on Transgender folks and how we're part of the queering of the church. I'd been feeling guilty earlier this week about not yet having gotten it to him. What strikes me, as someone also in the field of queer theology, what passionate energy he had for it, in a way I just haven't encountered in anyone else. What an unbelievable loss this is. We have to find a way to honor and celebrate his legacy of queering the church.

From: Marc Solomon
Dear Friends,

I am devastated to have to let you know that Alex Hivoltze-Jimenez passed away on Sunday night. The cause of death is inconclusive pending additional tests. What we know is that Alex had been very healthy, came down with flu-like symptoms on Saturday night, and died in his sleep on Sunday night or Monday morning.

We will also be organizing an effort to ensure that the work about which Alex was so passionate, the work of queer theology, lives on in his memory. We will soon have a more concrete plan and a place to direct contributions, again posted here.

You can offer condolences to Alex's immediate family, his mother Olivia Jimenez and sisters Lily and Nancy Jimenez, by writing in care of Lily Jimenez, 1325 Wycliffe, Irvine, CA 92602.

Alex was the closest person in the world to me and I cannot find words to describe how much I will miss him.

I know that so, so many loved him, cared for him, enjoyed him, and will miss him deeply.

Alex knew how to live. One time, Alex and I were talking about our lives, and he told me that he felt good about the fact that he lived - that he was present in his life and got the most -- even squeezed the most -- out of his days and his experiences. He lived with intensity and purpose. He said that he would feel good looking back on his life knowing that that was how he lived, no matter how old he was when he died.