More Prideful Thoughts
After reading a local pastor's latest post about his yearly opposition to Pride Month, I wanted to write an open letter directly to him. I sat with that idea for a little while and decided that it would likely do no good. I’m not going to change his or anyone else’s mind with what I’d have to say. Besides, I’ve got better things to do with my time than give him any more press or attention. I’d much rather write a letter to YOU, or at least as many of you as I could reach in the sphere of people I consider my family - My LGBTQ+ siblings, my siblings of diverse ethnicity, my siblings from many faiths and none, and my siblings who, even after all the ridiculous shenanigans of the evangelical Christian church, are still faithfully trying to follow the life and teachings of Jesus. What a beautiful family!
I’m so rich for knowing you, loving you, and having you in my life-for so many reasons…but primarily because you show me how sacred and diverse and beautiful life can be. How? By showing up as your authentic selves, no matter how scary that is, and contributing to your community in ways that are open and loving. You are so good at accepting people who are marginalized and different, because you know what it feels like. You know how it feels to be targeted by the old and tired religious institutions of our society that limp along, fed mostly by the energy of how offended they are at the very diversity that makes you beautiful.
What I really want you to hear is that life (and love and beauty and sacredness) is so much bigger than religion, and that YOU are the most essential part of what makes that true, simply because you are you.
All of the diverse religious traditions of the world that still exist have only come along in the last 6,000 years. You and I, and every other genetically modern human being that has ever lived, are a part of a lineage that goes back some 300,000 years! NEVER let ANYBODY define you, judge you, or guilt trip you based on a religion that has only been around for less than 2% of modern human history. We’ve been farming and domesticating animals for far longer than concepts like God, Judaism, the Bible, and Christianity have even existed. That’s a historical fact.
I confess that I don’t believe in the God of Christian Nationalism. The super-being with a male pronoun. The old white man on a throne somewhere out in the cosmos who measures his holiness by how much death he requires to forgive human sinfulness. The God who needs a blood sacrifice in order to appease his anger and be able to love us again. The God who commands genocide throughout history. He is capricious and vengeful. His followers will also tell you he’s just, merciful, and faithful, but their hearts fear conscious eternal torment as punishment for their evil natures. Their children go to bed at night fearing that they might die in their sleep and end up burning in hell forever if they don’t recite a prayer for salvation at every chance they get. I know because I was one of those kids who would wake up in the middle of the night and check to make sure my parents hadn’t been raptured, and that I hadn’t been left behind to fend for myself. I was 8 years old. 8 YEARS OLD.
It's hard to use the word “God” these days when I talk about what I DO believe, but I’ll give it a try. I believe God is love. Not a being who loves, but love itself. I believe God is spirit. Not a spirit being, but spirit…essence...vitality itself. God isn’t constrained in our ideas or thoughts. God is everywhere and nowhere. God is the ground of what makes us who we are. Our beings, indeed our very essence, is indistinguishable from this sacred flow that animates our hopes and dreams…and colors the sunsets at the same time. God is the pain of loss and the extasy of intimate connection. God is the fabric of a multiverse where time and gravity and light are artistic brushstrokes across an endless canvas of now. That’s the God I believe in, and that God has never been, and will never be separate from the mystery and preciousness that is you and me.
I’m sure there are some Christian Nationalists who think they are living and acting the right way based on what they are free to believe. Here’s my unsolicited advice. Let them. Stand against injustice and respect human dignity, but don’t waste time arguing about things that haven’t been believable since the Age of Enlightenment in the 1500s. Often the best counter argument is to allow old ideologies to continue along their path of irrelevance until they disappear into history.
Not that you’re asking, but here’s a little more advice. Don’t throw the spiritual baby out with the evangelical bath water. Spirituality is the birthright of every human being. You were born sacred, and it is your right to explore what that means and how you connect to the sacred in your life. Even though I don’t believe in the traditional evangelical concept of God, I still find my roots in following the life and teachings of Jesus. If that’s not for you, awesome, but find something that is. Find a way to tap into the deep reverberations of your being which tell you that you and everyone else are loved and connected. No one can take that away from you.
When you place yourself up on a pedestal to speak for “God,” and your message is exclusive, arrogant, judgmental, and full of isolation, the energy of those actions can come back to haunt you in painful ways. I do not wish that anyone, but I also know that the hardest lessons of my life have been learned via my own short sightedness and pain. I hope the love I keep going on and on about dissolves the bonds being forged between faith and political control. I hope it heals the authoritarian conditioning that so many have been formed in, bringing freedom from the grip of religious trauma that has broken so many spirits along the path of human history.
Love and sacredness defines who you are. When you live that way, life can be beautiful and full and whole. Let's share that life together. Let's paint our sky with those colors. We won't regret it. I love you guys.
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