All About Pride

On a wall in our home in a frame are the coordinates to Stonewall Inn. In between the coordinates is a compass, and at the bottom of the page are circles made of rainbow colors. We were doing some work near this framed art piece the other day, and I couldn't help but stare at it. Even when I left its immediate vicinity, I couldn't shake the image in my mind. This morning, over a cup of coffee, I figured out why.

It's Pride month, as many of you are likely aware, and it seems like this year I've heard a lot more hurtful rhetoric about it. I've read posts and articles from other Christians talking about how "pride is a sin" and how LGBTQIA+ folx "don't own the rainbow." This year my family and I have listened to lawmakers and commentators call our family inconsequential at best and, at worst, an abhorrent crime against God and humanity. And at the recent Pride festival the church had a booth at, protestors were once again present right across the street. Holding up signs with cherry-picked scripture passages on them, calling for repentance, and telling us "groomers" to go home.

Most of the time this stuff doesn't bother me, but collectively, over time, perhaps without me even noticing it, it has had a cumulative effect on my soul and, I'm certain, the soul of others in the LGBTQIA+ community. There is a weariness present that I can't fully explain, and almost a feeling of being lost. Lost in a swirl of hate. Lost in fear. Just lost somehow--like I've lost my way somewhere in the middle of absorbing all of the blows from news media, social media, lawmakers, protestors, and "well-meaning" other Christians. Not to mention being the keeper of stories from so many who have been hurt by these same people.

But if I was, in fact, lost, that picture in our home helped me get found again because it called me back to where and how Pride started. If you don't know, in June of 1969, the Stonewall Riots occurred after New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. This led to 6 days of protests and is credited with birthing a more widespread LGBTQIA+ rights movement. In the years following the riots, bisexual activist Brenda Howard, bisexual activist Robert A. Martin, Jr. (known as Donny the Punk), and gay activist L. Craig Schoonmaker, helped popularize the word "pride" to describe a yearly commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, in part, because they brought national attention to the issues that queer people were facing (and still face today).

What I came to understand was that when others are working SO HARD to control the narrative with lies and hate, that framed picture in our home points me back to the TRUTH. The truth, that love isn't a fight, but it IS something worth fighting for. The truth that scripture is full of descriptions of a God who created us to live FULLY. The truth that Pride as it is celebrated each June isn't a sin--it is a space for those of us who have been (and continue to be) hurt and told to be ashamed and made low to celebrate the FULLNESS of our humanity. The truth that we are not the first people to ever walk this road to liberation, and we will not be the last. 

In a very real way, that framed picture helped me find my center again, and it reminded me of the lyrics to one of my favorite hymns:  Come and Find the Quiet Center, written by Shirley Erena Murray. I'll finish this blog post with the lyrics to the first verse of that only after I remind each and every one of you of this:  Whatever has you feeling lost. Whatever has you feeling less than the fullness of your humanity. Whatever has left you feeling shame or made low--is NOT the truth. You may not be a person who is part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but you were no less made to live fully. So when the noise and the clamour and the hurt and the shame get too loud, my prayer is that you too would find your quiet center. And in that, you would find a peace that surpasses all understanding. 

And now, those lyrics (ALL of the verses are great, by the way):  Come and find the quiet center in the crowded life we lead, find the room for hope to enter, find the frame where we are freed: clear the chaos and the clutter, clear our eyes, that we can see all the things that really matter, be at peace, and simply be.

Finding the Quiet Center with you,
​Pr. Melissa

---