Pride Reflection: Melanie Peltz

Reflection for Pride 2020

By Melanie Peltz

What does PRIDE mean to me - especially without a parade?

Good morning! My name is Melanie Peltz, and I am … a … lesbian. (deep breath) Even after nearly 10 years of marriage to my brilliant wife and with a supportive church like Urban Abbey to call my home - it is still awkward for me every single time I come out.

So, for me, pride without a parade this year is about magnifying and appreciating the frequent, unplanned, redemptive experiences that come from leaning in and telling my (our) stories. Pride without a parade reminds me to enjoy the daily celebrations. But in June 2020, that’s harder than it sounds. We have a lot of priorities - moving boundaries, unprecedented restrictions that prevent us from leaning in daily - telling stories daily, being an ally or advocate - stepping out of fragility or hiding and into pride and marching with others … not easy. And how do we find those ‘others’ with whom you can march? It requires sitting with the discomfort and challenge that comes with coming out and telling story. 

All of that has new levels of meaning in June 2020. 

Pride for me has come slowly, progressively, in fits and starts. I’ve experienced amazing joy and incredible heartache. That’s the stuff of life, to be sure, and it is not unique to me or to the LGBT community. 

Especially in June 2020.

Pride without a parade is about infusing the celebration - particularly right now - into the mundane. Adding glitter to the grind and rainbows to the regular - and showing up to tell my story over and over again. Because facing my fears becomes much more interesting when I can support other queer folks and gather a network of straight allies.

As a middle school teacher, preacher’s kid, leader and member of various community organizations, my pride has taken a beating. But it has also surprised me.  One year ago, my student leaders approached me with that dreaded (in my mind) question. “Ms. Peltz, are you married?” Well, thanks to the supreme court ruling in 2015, I can absolutely say YES! But then the follow up questions came. “What does your husband do?” “Why haven’t we met him?” “Ms. Peltz, are you married to a MAN?”

Finally, I came out. And, when I did, they cheered and hugged me. One wrote a letter that has encouraged me through some tough moments this year. She said:

“Dear Ms. Peltz, Thank you for being such a good role model. I honestly hope I get to live a life like yours one day. You’ve traveled so much, and you get to do it with the love of your life which is so baller. I look up to you more than you could ever know, and I hope you’re as proud of me as I want you to be. Especially, being part of the LGBTQ+ community, I look up to you so much…”

Becoming a role model, empowering other role models, voices of love and acceptance… Those are the rainbows and glitter of everyday pride.

Pride without a parade is celebrating when I came out to a co-worker last year when she nearly knocked me over with hugs and squeals of joy because she then knew she had an ally for her family and her daughter. 

Pride without a parade is picking the perfect playlist for my spinning class so we can have a sliver of that group glitter.

Pride without a parade is remembering everyday that love is of God and EVERYONE who loves is born of God.

Pride without a parade means there’s no deadline. No due date for coming out. Pride without a parade means it is never too late to show your support, your love, or your pride.

May it be so. Amen.

A Prayer on Father's Day - Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado

A Prayer on Father’s Day
Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado

Recently on NPR I was listening to an interview with the theologian, Pastor
Irwyn L. Ince Jr. of the Grace DC Institute for Cross Cultural Mission in our
nation’s capital. He was talking about the role racially diverse churches
“could” play in fostering social justice. He laid this out in reference to his
book, The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its
Best.

For him, the church is at its best when it pursues the biblical value of unity
in diversity. Our world has been torn apart by racial, ethnic, and ideological
differences. It is seen in our politics, felt in our families, and ingrained in our
theology. Sadly, the church has often reinforced these ethnic and racial
divides. To cast off the ugliness of disunity and heal our fractured humanity,
he believes that, we must cultivate spiritual practices that help us pursue a
beautiful community.

In The Beautiful Community, Pastor Ince boldly unpacks the reasons for
our divisions, while gently guiding us toward our true hope for wholeness
and reconciliation.

He states, “God reveals himself to us in his trinitarian life as the
perfection of beauty, and essential to this beauty is his work as
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel imperative to pursue the
beautiful community—unity in diversity across lines of difference—is
rooted in reflecting the beautiful community of our God.”

His book calls us into, and provides tools, for that pursuit.

And this is important given that churches like our own have extended
themselves to serve as a touch point for those “less fortunate” than us, and
logically we have invited those very same people to worship and commune
with us, in the hopes that the result of that endeavor will indeed be the
formation of the “beautiful community” of which Pastor Ince speaks.

And therein lies the problem, because try as we might, the community we
are seeking to create will remain elusive and difficult, until and unless we
undertake a radical reinterpretation of what community really means.

How so? You may ask. It is largely because of the deeply cultural and
sometimes racist roots of our own church communities. By and large, we
are not overtly racist as individuals, but what is becoming abundantly
clearer in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the resulting
public outrage, is that most, if not all, of our institutions, our government,
our corporations, our colleges and universities, and our churches, all are
inherently racist in their design and execution. They are the intact legacies
of race-based design that overtly privileged whites over almost all groups in
American society. We have thrown a bone of sort to our Black and Latino
communities by inviting these communities to worship alongside us, we
have adopted (some would say co-opted) black gospel hymns as our own.
For Pete’s sake, the Methodist hymnal even has a Duke Ellington song in
it. We mimic spiritual practices from hither and yon as to somehow connect
ourselves to something outside of and larger than our own being. And that
is good, but in the eyes of Pastor Ince, the core culture of our religious
institutions remains firmly white and if we are honest with ourselves, we
must acknowledge that this institution like all of our institutions, were
founded to preserve the rights and privileges of their landed gentry and
their ministry, founded to promote and maintain their elitism, albeit in the
name of God. It begs the question as to what we, all well intentioned
Christians, can do to change that dynamic.

Now let me warn you that we are trying to address a horrific
dysfunctionality that has been 400 years in the making. You may ask then,
what this has, if anything, to do with Father’s Day. Well it has everything to
do with Father’s Day, especially this Father’s Day, and in particular for
Black fathers under the shadow of what is now a triple pandemic.

Consider the following: we are living under the specter of the Coronavirus
where nearly 120,000 lives have been lost; we are enduring the associated
economic collapse that has seen over 40 million Americans out of work and
hammering the already precarious and vulnerable nature of employment in
communities of color and beyond. I mean, what do they have to lose?

And now, the urgency of a movement to confront the reality of police
killings of Blacks across the country. And it has been Black father’s -
George Floyd in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, and James
Scurlock a mere three blocks from here, and many more like them, who
have borne the brunt and the worst of all of it: dying at disproportionately
higher rates from the pandemic; being devastated by job loss and the
economic downturn; and continuing to be killed by uniformed law
enforcement on the regular.

In fact, in 2019 Blacks were 2.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by
the police. If you are black and male, living in Reno, Oklahoma City,
Anaheim, St, Louis, Madison, and Scottsdale the ratio was even higher. In
so many ways for Black fathers and their many proxies, Father’s Day must
feel like a day of reckoning. In 2020, Blacks are 2.5 times more likely to
succumb to the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the
well-known health disparity between Blacks and all other groups in the U.S.

I am reminded of the lyrics from the 1980’s rap anthem by Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five, The Message:

Don’t push me,
Cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head,
Say what!!
It’s like a jungle sometimes.
It makes me wonder, how I keep from going under.

This is not just a pandemic, for Black Fathers it is pandemonium – a wild
and noisy disorder of confusion and death; a deadly uproar pointed directly
at Black males. I note, the origin of the word: “pan-daemon” comes from
Mid 17th century modern Latin (denoting the “place of all demons”, in John
Milton's Paradise Lost). Surely it must feel as though all the demons are
poised to attack.

It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.

Proverbs 4:11-12: "I will guide you in the way of wisdom and I will lead
you in upright paths. When you walk, your steps will not be

hampered, and when you run, you will not stumble."

In the midst of what I have just described, how is it that a Black father
attempts to carve an upright path for their children? I would be remiss and
dishonest if I were to stand here and tell you, what it’s like out there for
Black fathers. I have an educated, intellectual idea, but I really don’t know.
While I am a man of color, I am also a man of privilege for who many of the
challenges and obstacles facing Black fathers are not even remotely near
my experience. And in the midst of this jungle and this pandemonium, I
have pledged to shut up, listen to my Black brothers and sisters, and to act.
And here again I quote Pastor Ince:
“I do believe that there is a heavier burden on churches that have
been historically exclusively white to actively engage in breaking
down those barriers and pursuing unity and diversity and, as a part of
that process, really examining their own history and then saying, what

does it look like for us to move in a different direction?”

I repeat, what does it look like for us to move in a different direction?

For myself to begin that process, I reached out across the country to a
trusted group of friends, who happen to be Black fathers to listen and to
gain a better understanding of what it might take so their sons and
daughters might not be hampered as they walk in this world and, so
they may not stumble as they run. And to them all I posed the following
question, knowing that it is the universal discourse for all of them, that
follows from a world that sees their little black boys as cute, but their older
versions as some sort of dystopian super-predator, and then, when they
have to engage in the “Talk.” The “Talk” is a time-worn rite of passage
where Black fathers, mothers and others lay out the reality of an
unforgiving world. I asked them, “What do you tell your son about the world
out there?” Their sons ranging from a six-month old to an 18-year old

entering college.

This is what those friends shared with me:

• “For me their education is the key, they have to know the world that
they are living in. That it is racist and dangerous, all of it. Then we
can have a productive discourse on their rights, that their actions
have consequences, sometimes unintended. But, yes, I do worry

about them out there.”

• “I tell him, `do you understand?’ - It is unjust, that there are different
rules for different people, it is unfair. Why? How can this be
happening? Outside of the house, the police rule – there is no

guarantee that you’ll be safe.”

• “For me, this is an incremental process, starting now as he is a little
boy, books and stories, letting him see himself as something special
but ultimately preparing him for that hard reality. All I can do is instill
him with pride in who he is and teach him to be self-reliant in the face

of all of it.”

• “I tell the truth, I tell him that he has so much to offer, yes, there are
forces against you. But I want to him to live his truth, whatever that
means, and to work to stay grounded and become indispensable in

everything he does.”

• The conversation begins with a focus on building his self-esteem, to
truly understand what race and racism are in our society, to be fully
aware of his blackness. But I do worry when it gets dark, whether or

not he will make it back from work alive.”

Hearing their testimonies, I am simultaneously torn apart and inspired by
their words. That they worry that the hug they share as their child as they
leave the house might be the last one, is sobering, that they dream that that
their sons and daughters will be the leaders and catalysts for
transformation in our society is inspiring. I marvel at all of these father’s

strength, resilience, and courage in the face of all of this.

I too want to make sure that this message isn’t only a litany of all that is
wrong with our world and want to imbue it with some sense of promise and
possibility, and in the words of my Black father friends I leave you these

testimonies of hope for their sons:

• “I want my children to become the agents of change in society, to
carry that mindset that created the Jaime Escalante’s and Thurgood

Marshall’s of the world.”

• “To be positive up and down, to take advantage of life’s opportunities
and turning points, that they get a fair shot at achieving their dreams,
and that they always have a basic right to safety.”

• “To create a better world, to be intentionally unapologetic knowing
that there will be tough times, and hard lessons, but that he can learn

from them.”

• “I want my son to be himself, to do what he wants, and to know that
his freedom has been earned through hard work, discipline and

sacrifice.”

• “I want him to have a healthy sense of self, high self-esteem that will
guide him in those hard, racist spaces he will encounter, and to

always stand up for himself.“

This begs the question, what it is that “we” tell our children about the Black
children that they will encounter in the world? Do we tell them to think of
these children too as children of God? Do we hope for them all too to
become similarly self-assured, rights-bearing individuals who will journey
alongside their Black brothers and sisters they walk in this world and, so
they may not stumble as they run toward a future free of the racism,

discrimination and violence toward blacks. I’m hoping so.

For me this is the kernel of hope on which we can lay the foundation for
building that beautiful diverse, just and equitable community we are called
to create, on this most auspicious of Father’s Day’s, may we have the
courage and the wisdom to make it so. Amen.

Power in the City of God: Don't be a bully

Rev. Debra McKnight's Sermon

June 14, 2020

Saul is breathing threats of murder and violence against the followers of The Way, which is to say the folks who are following Jesus. They are a reform movement, still connected to Judaism; they are not the only reform movement, but they are the ones Saul becomes zealous to destroy. He has permission from the Chief Priest and he uses both his privilege as a Roman, as well as his connections as a Jewish leader to terrorize folks. This is where we are in the book of Acts and I wonder if it might be where we are today. Saul is caught in fear of change, fear of this new community, bent on destruction, until he changes. Saul becomes Paul, he goes blind for three days and, when the scales fall from his eyes, he changes everything. How? How does he go from persecutor to persecuted, from oppressor to oppressed, from power over to power with? How do we change today?


This moment in our history, this season of struggle and unrest, this season of uncovering our communal failures reminds me, oddly enough of Augustine. He writes as the sun is setting on the Roman Empire. It is coming to a close, its power by force, its disregard for life at every level, and its peace by the swords is ending in chaos. This is the backdrop of his life. In the City of God he writes, “Is it reasonable, is it sensible to boast of the extent and grander of empire, when you cannot show that men lived in happiness, as they passed their lives amid the horrors of war, the shedding of men’s blood-whether the blood of enemies or fellow citizens-under the shadow of fear and amid the terror of ruthless ambition? The only joy to be attained had the fragile brilliance of glass, a joy outweighed by the fear that it may be shattered in a moment” (Book IV, Chapter 3).


He speaks to the purpose of community and questions the empire’s successes - community that connects and empowers and invites life abundant should be the purpose for organizing community. In the next chapter, this Church Father of Hippo, writing from North Africa will outright compare Emperors and Kings to gangs and pirates. Today perhaps he would use the word terrorist. “Remove Justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms” (Book IV, Chapter 4). He connects power with justice; power without justice is ambition, it is purposeless, it is terror.  What would he speak to us yet today?  He says, “It is a wicked prayer to ask to have someone to hate or to fear, so that he may be someone to conquer” (Book IV, Chapter 13). 


The power we possess together and how we possess it together is essential. It must be bound to justice to have meaning. We see written large before us how much we struggle with power. And we won’t be in a world without power; we need it to organize. We want to organize a faith community and so we hire a pastor. We want someone to organize our streets and open the pools and manage our contracts so we elect folks, like a mayor and hire folks and they work towards the purpose of community. We hope they will work for the greater good. Power when it is deployed well brings justice, invites connection, builds people up and honors their gifts. It strengthens rather than diminishes life. Real power shows restraint. Real power shows wisdom and intention about its deployment. Power without restraint, makes us bullies. 


We see this when the most powerful countries and the most powerful people misuse their power. When The President speaks of “dominating the streets” or removes peaceful protesters for a photo in front of a church. We see it when careless remarks at the world, the largest microphone, means folks ingest cleaning products or unvetted theories become news. We see it when law enforcement, armed from head to toe push a 75 year old man to the ground. Power requires restraint. Its misuse is a violence against the very fabric of our community. Every system we look to asks us to reform.  When we deploy our power having the most money, the most might, the biggest voice and the most guns, and it is disconnected from justice without a care for connection, it makes us bullies. We have a problem with power at every level. We see it in homes when parents and care givers offer hurt and harm by their words or hands. We see it as cycles of domestic and sexual violence just keep turning. We see power abused in the classroom and in the boardroom. We see it when we try to control certain bodies, whether it is access to health care for folks who are transgender or folks who need access to their reproductive rights. We struggle with power and we are asked if our struggle will require us to grow or if we will sunset like empires before. 


Reform is hard. Nobody wants to do it. We don’t do it until we have to and we need to do it in every system around us. In our justice system, our education systems, our healthcare systems, our corrections systems, our policing systems, and in our church. Every thing must change. We know this. But it takes work and it requires us to be honest about why things are the way they are and what we are afraid of as we change. And if we are going to approach this through the metaphor of “Bad Apples,” well we should want to get very good at extracting bad apples before they rot the entire culture. We should be pros at removing bad apples and we should get better still at nurturing healthy fruit. How do we support healthy leaders, who use wisdom and restraint in their power, who are rooted in the values of our community, seekers of a common good, who make us all better for their work and show compassion?


One space that has aired out for reform is the church universal. Since I’m a pastor, I will start there, but you can imagine it as a metaphor. We have a history of clergy leaders abusing their power and abusing the most vulnerable, children and women. As modern protestants, it might be convenient to say, “Oh it’s that other denomination over there…you know the one…it’s not us”. But if we are honest and if we actually care about the heart of our work and the values that Jesus taught, we will look inward and figure out where we bring harm. We will look at what makes healthy leaders and we will get good at removing a bad apple. We do this, or we are trying to. Do I love participating in it? Do I love going to extra trainings on boundaries? To be honest, I often do not. Do I think my male peers should have to pay for my training just based on statistics?…well, I kind of do. But, I go. And every time I go, I am reminded of how to help, how to look for red flags, how to be mindful in our local systems and how to support survivors. Every time I am reminded how much more we need to change as a church, how we fail to talk about healthy sexual expression over and over. We don’t talk about healthy sexual ethics or healthy boundaries and unhealthy boundaries, or red flags or cycles of violence; it is easier to make when you can have sex a black and white answer, and we choose easy. We choose easy to the benefit of no one. We fail over and over again. 


This week I was prepared to participate in the start of a church trial and it wasn’t because we believed love is love and some zealous folks brought me up on charges. It was the trial because women spoke their stories of harassment and stalking, hurt and fear to myself and another clergy woman. His history was documented already and the cycle looked like it was continuing. Every time a pastor or priest is in the news for abusing their power, they diminish the work of the church. Every time it elevates skeptics and it makes the work that should be life-giving that much more challenging. I spend most of my time telling folks what I am not, what we are not. I am a pastor, but I like gay people. I’m a pastor, but we march in pride parades. I’m a pastor, but I don’t think women should be silent in church. I’m a pastor, and we believe in science. I’m a pastor, but not that kind of pastor.  


So it grieves me every time someone diminishes the world of the church with their greed, ambition, selfishness, and predatory behavior. This week in preparation, I was one of the only witnesses because the fear in theses cycles of violence is so great. Preparing for this trial took time, it took energy, it took money. I practiced. I practiced with an attorney and that’s just the end of the work. There was deep preparation and I didn’t always want to do it, but when I heard a young woman say, “I thought he was nice because he was a pastor,” I was all in for this Bad Apple removal project. In the end, there wasn’t a trial; he surrendered his credentials and that’s that.  Reform is hard work and, if we fail to participate every time a leader abuses power, they diminish the very heart of our work. If we can not stand up to make change within our own systems, then there is no purpose to the work that rests ahead. 


Reform is hard and uneasy.  No one wants to do it, but we are called. So when we hear Me Too and it makes us feel uneasy, we need to ask why are we afraid. When we hear Black Lives Matter and we feel worries, we need to ask why are we afraid, why is that hard for me to say? And we need to go deep into our heart. Why are we afraid? Fear drives us into ugly spaces. 


Fear is at the very heart of the story of Saul becoming Paul. He is breathing murder and threats against the people who follow Jesus. They are not the only reform movement, but they are at the top of his list of problems. This reform movement is ruining something he liked just the way it was. So he uses his power as a leader with in the Jewish community to get the Chief Priests permission and his privilege as a Roman citizen to travel and bring people bound. He is terrorizing folks who follow Jesus and he is sort of famous for it. Then he is overwhelmed by something new, a voice he names as Jesus says, “why are you persecuting me?” For three days, he sits in this space of blindness, in darkness. The Voice he attributes to Jesus is direct, more direct than usual…you will be told. His companions bring him to Damascus and he waits. This spirited voice shows up to a man named Ananias and give him one of the worst jobs in early Christianity…Go Talk to Saul. Rightly hesitant, Ananias must wonder if this will lead to his own death, to confront the number one oppressor. Ananias enters this dangerous space of trial and uncertainty. He goes where he never imagined he would go to talk to one he must have considered a monster. And everything changes. The narrative does not end in Ananias bound, but rather Saul unbound, something like scales fall from Saul’s eyes. Saul is so changed he changes his name to Paul. He learns and he listens and soon he is off using all of his gifts and privilege for preaching on the very theology he once considered an enemy. 


How will we confront our fears? How will we sit in the discomfort and darkness? What will it look like when the scales fall from our eyes? May we join Paul in letting go of the fear and anger and becoming new. May we join him in repentance and reform, a way of power with rather than power over, a way of transformation, deploying power for compassion and love. 


May we have the courage. Amen.

Rev. Debra McKnight

Pride 2020 - Reflection, Jasmine Flores

What does Pride mean to me?

Jasmine Flores, UA Barista and UNO Student

This month of pride in 2020 is different from many of its predecessors. There is an unparalleled turmoil, an urgency that calls all of us. Itis not enough to be out and proud this year. We are obligated by the sense of justice that has been ingrained in our community ever since the first riots in the 1980s began, fighting for the right to exist for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people - for all of the people who grew into and out of queerness - protesting and pushing the whole way through. This push for rights is the work black trans women, who have been leaders to us, though our community is heavy with the same oppressive prejudices that straight cisgender people wield in order to silence their voices. 

We must all recognize their loss, their humanity, and celebrate those who live despite that, leaders like Miss Major who fought for my right to be here right now in front of you, saying these words. We look now to black leaders, who guide and direct during this time of anger and grief and turmoil. We open our hearts and minds, we show our solidarity through providing resources, through providing bodies, through speaking out when injustice lives and breeds in our communities. Pride this year returns to its roots - to protest, to loud voices that scream for life, to not standing by and allowing hate to cloud our vision and hold us hostage. 

To hold pride in our community is to act now, to recognize police brutality is a product of the disease - the racism that lives within the foundation of our nation. We cannot ignore it, because this is what pride is about - it is about standing up for justice, for equality, for love and for life. No lives matter until black lives matter. This includes black gay lives, black trans lives, black queer lives - some of the most vulnerable, the most courageous, and the most exhausted people in our community. Now is the time to come together, to uplift their voices and stand strong beside them, to protect them and hold them in our hearts. 

Pride has never been about the parade - it has never been about rainbows or corporate sponsorship, either. Pride exists whether we celebrate or mourn, whether we cheer or cry, Pride is about embodying the ideals our elders set forth before us. We will not celebrate pride this year with a parade, but a protest. All that I ask of you now is to stand up for justice - but be conscious of your health and wellbeing. Listen to black people, to black leaders, read literature, educate yourself, donate money and supplies, do what you can, dear Urban Abbey. Now more than ever it is time to look within ourselves and ask: what am I fighting for? This is what pride means to me.

Pride 2020 - Reflection, Nicole Guthrie

What does Pride mean to me?

Nicole Guthrie

Director of Community Engagement, Urban Abbey

Pride isn’t something I’ve always had, and as I was reflecting about what Pride means to me, I realized that I’m still in the process of becoming who I am in some ways. Pride is standing in the boldness of the LGBTQ+ community, being bold yourself, and inviting others to the party.  Literally, the definition of pride is: confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group, typically one that has been socially marginalized, on the basis of their shared identity, culture, and experience.  

It’s challenging to have confidence, self-respect and be bold when you’ve struggled for so long to have your existence accepted, and I acknowledge that even in my own personal struggle, I’ve had a lot of privilege.  My particular challenges met at the intersection of my faith and my queerness.  Both are so important to me, but I grew into adulthood thinking I couldn’t be both.  That I would have to choose. That I would have to leave part of myself behind, always. I didn’t really have a problem with being gay -- but I was very concerned about what the Church had to say and what the people I cared about would think of me.  Those fears paralyzed me for nearly a decade.  I was convinced that I would not be loved by family, friends, or God.  I thought I would lose all of my most important relationships, I feared that I would never be able to be fully me and if I couldn’t be fully me, maybe being alive wasn’t even worth it.   When faith leaders I looked up to told me they didn’t think who I am and how I love is “God’s best” for me, it stung. That language is dehumanizing, heart-breaking, and just plain wrong. Period.  This easily leads to despair, not pride.

The intersection of faith and sexuality for me has been a lot of tip-toeing around whether or not I could or would ever feel whole in all the spaces that are sacred to me.  Wondering if I would ever be able to find my voice.  Would I sit in the silence or would I rise up, claim my space, and be bold.  For too long, I have held onto the pain of the years I spent waffling between being gay and trying to pray it away.  

Pride, to me, is also about becoming, about liberating myself from lies I believed previously.  It’s finding great joy in a community that builds me up.  Pride is making family from friends who see me and love me.  Pride is reclaiming my faith, standing firm in who I am.  Pride is working to ensure that those who come after you have less stories of despair.  Pride is being BOLD.  Standing UP and speaking OUT.  

In my twenties, I was so timid.  Instead of diving into the history of pride and gay liberation, I just barely scratched the surface.  I belong to this beautiful, diverse, bold family united in Pride. Recently, I have found that I am woefully uneducated of the details of the history, the outrage and pain, and the riots that have made Pride what it is today: a beacon of hope to so many people.  I have had the privilege of standing on the shoulders of those who have come before me, what a legacy they have given us.  As Marsha P. Johnson, one of the prominent figures of the Stonewall Uprising, a black, drag queen, gay liberation activist said, “as long as my people don’t have rights across America, there’s no reason for celebration.” 

So, I’m okay with Pride being a little muted this year -- I’m okay with there not being a big celebration.  Because Pride is also about resistance. While rights have expanded, we still have work to do, there is still struggle, if black and brown bodies are seen and treated as disposable, there’s no reason for celebration.  Pride reaches across various marginalized groups and because of that we amplify other voices.  We stand in the acknowledgement that racism, sexism, ableism, white supremacy, homophobia, and transphobia. diminish the human spirit.  What pride teaches us is that we have to stand together, we have to work for justice, we have to give space and priority to the voiceless.  The legacy of Stonewall is that we resist, resist racism, sexism, ableism, white supremacy, homophobia, and transphobia. We stand alongside those who are still experiencing repression and oppression and journey with them towards justice and full liberation.  This is our work, to stand alongside others, and so Pride to me this year means, I continue to stay educated, I continue to engage, I continue to resist, because in the words of Marsha P. Johnson there’s “no Pride for some of us, without liberation for all of us.” 

Reflections on Grief: Joel Walker, MEd, MDiv

Processing your grief

Grief is unavoidable. It has happened to you, and it will continue to happen at times in your life. Everyone grieves. And grief doesn’t only happen following a death. Grief is your response to a loss in your life. ANY loss can bring about grief. Grief brings about many feelings and changes in us that keep us from thriving. Most certainly, the Covid-19 situation we are enduring has brought about grief. I think it is important to take the time to examine and process this grief.

I encourage you to sit down in a quiet place, perhaps outside on a nice day, and write down a list of the things you have lost since your life began to be affected by Covid-19. I think you’ll be surprised at just how much you find. You may not find a single loss you consider serious or catastrophic. But you will likely find a series of small to moderate losses that have added up to impact you, bringing grief to your life.

Maybe you lost a chance to close out a relationship in person. Maybe you missed a one-time event that a loved one was supposed to participate in, and now you will never be able to experience that moment. Maybe you have lost the sense of freedom you used to feel when going out in public. Maybe you have lost your job or a portion of your income. Maybe you have lost the ability to spend time with an older family member who is likely not going to be around much longer, and you wonder when you will ever be able to hug him or her again.

Once you have named the losses you have experienced, think about each loss individually, and ask yourself, “What feelings do I experience when I think about that loss?” Not all the losses will have the same set of feelings. You might be angry at one loss and disappointed about another. You might have several different feelings with a particular loss.

Finally, take your losses, and the feelings attached to those losses, and share them with someone who is a good listener and cares about you. If possible, do it in person. If that’s not possible, do it through the phone or one of the online communication platforms. And, if you’re not ready to share it with someone, at least share it in writing through a journal or poetry. While doing any of the above, assume that the love of God is with you. And although sharing these things might not magically wipe all your grief away immediately, you are likely to feel significantly better by simply going through this process and naming what you are thinking and feeling. By taking the time to reflect on your grief, you will grow as a person and become more whole for the long-term.


Caring for someone who is grieving

Knowing that grief comes from loss and that everyone has lost something during this Covid-19 time, you could potentially be of great help to someone else. Maybe your grief is mild, but you live with someone, or you know someone, who is having a very difficult time. Here is how you can help that person, and it is not that difficult – it just takes time, sincerity, and a willingness to listen deeply.

Contact the person who is struggling. Acknowledge to that person that this has been a challenging time for everyone, you included. Then, put yourself out there to get the ball rolling. Talk to that person about a few of the things you have lost during this time period and how it has made you feel. Then, in a sincere tone, ask the person if he/she is willing to share about any struggles he/she is having. Let that person know you care about him/her and you simply want to allow that person to be heard. Use what you know about your own losses and feelings to help this person examine his/her own.

If the person you are trying to help is more closed off for the time being, consider just acknowledging that this may be a hard time for that person and that you are open and willing to listen should he/she ever want to talk.

Like with most things, communication about losses and grief is most effective in person. But, if the person you are checking in with is not living with you, do the best you can. A phone call or online video chat may be what you need to use.

Ask for God’s guidance as you reach out in love to the hurting person.