She pressed a palm facing the East
Like a prayer to no God begging for
peace
She tells herself this wall is a
crime
With a hard enough push
It'll crumble in time
Snap at the check points, their
attention divides
Tied down in the back
It's cheap for one ride
He'll make a dash but we'll do the
time
Shot down in the strip, the silence
sublime
Burn us those books just to kill
time
Set aside a few hours our evening
wine
Sad old sweet songs ring out in the
wood
Light up the sky If only I could.
Now gather around, the allies move
in
but the gifts that they bring are
fatty with sin
And they offer peace but brandish a
crown
And the higher they build, The
deeper we'll drown
Burn us those books just to kill
time, set aside a few hours our
evening wine, sad old sweet songs
ring out in the wood
Light up the sky if only I could.
They pressed his cheek facing the
West
No songs to be sung, eyes to be
blessed
Power implied, it whispers to walls,
The higher we hang, the further
they'll fall
And the higher we hang, the further
we'll fall
And the higher we hang, the further
we'll fall
Burn us those books just to kill
time, set aside a few hours, our
evening wine, sad old sweet songs
ring out in the wood,
Light up the sky if only I could
Burn us those books just to kill
time, set aside a few hours,
our evening wine, sad old sweet
songs ring out in the wood,
Light up the sky if only I could.
Light up the sky if only I could.
Light up the sky if only I could.
Light up the sky if only I could.
Light up the sky if only I could.
Hi, my name is Pam Rocker, and
welcome to our second annual city
wide pride service. This service
comes to you from over 20 affirming
faith communities and a variety of
religious traditions. We're so glad
you're here. In music, word and
action, join us as we celebrate
love, inclusion, visibility and the
sacred value of each of us. We
affirm that God loves you as you
are, and that you are meant to be
seen.
We are broadcasting the service from
Treaty Seven land, the traditional
territory of the Kainai, Piikani,
Siksika, Stoney Nakoda, and
Tsuut’ina Nations. In acknowledging
this land, we call ourselves to live
with respect in creation, and in
right relationship with all its
peoples. We understand that this
means structural and personal
change. As religious communities
that are affirming, we believe that
God has created the diversity of
this world. And that diversity is to
be affirmed and cherished, not
merely tolerated. Lesbian, bi, gay,
trans, straight, two-spirited,
queer, intersex, whatever your race,
your economic class, your abilities,
your religion. We believe that you
are the person God created you to
be, meant to be seen for who you
are, and affirmed for who you are.
Wildrose United Church welcomes you,
whoever you are. We're glad you're
here.
At Lutheran Church of the Cross, you
are welcome exactly as you are.
You are welcome to be who you are at
Calgary Inter-Mennonite Church.
Knox United Church welcomes you.
Whoever you are, Scarboro United
Church wants you to know you are
welcome here.
We at St. Thomas United Church
welcome you.
At McDougall United Church, you are
welcome exactly as you are.
Whoever you are, Okotoks United
Church wants you to know you are
fully welcome.
Red Deer Lake United Church welcomes
you. Whoever you are, whatever your
story is, we're so glad that you are
with us.
We at Knox Presbyterian Church
welcome you.
You are welcome to be who you are at
Deer Park United Church and St.
Andrews United Church.
We at Woodcliff United Church
welcome you.
St. Stephen's Anglican Church
welcomes you. Whoever you are, we're
glad you're here.
Symons Valley United Church welcomes
you.
We at Robert McClure United Church
welcome you! Welcome!
Whoever you are, Living Spirit
United Church wants you to know that
you are fully welcome.
At Ralph Connor Memorial United
Church, you are welcome exactly as
you are.
You are welcome to be who you are at
St. Laurence Anglican Church.
At Hillhurst United Church, whoever
you are, wherever you're at, join us
on the journey.
Whoever you are, the Anglican Parish
of Christ Church Elbow Park wants
you to know you are fully welcome.
We at YYC Campus Ministry welcome
you!
Hello everybody, I'm Rabbi Mark
Glickman of Temple B'Nai Tikvah here
in Calgary and on behalf of our
entire congregation, I want to
welcome you to this wonderful
celebration of pride here in our
community. You know, in Judaism,
when we see somebody who is unusual
or is different, we're taught not to
scowl at them, not to look at them
askance, but to say the words in
Hebrew, "Blessed are you lord our
God, ruler of the universe, who
makes people different from one
another." Diversity is sacred.
Diversity is one of the greatest
gifts God has given us, and what a
wonderful thing it is, therefore, as
we celebrate the diversity of all
humanity during this Pride Week.
Shalom.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuh. El-Tawhid Juma circle
is an affirming Muslim community
with a chapter in Calgary. We are a
non gender segregated, progressive,
LGBTQIA two-spirit. We are an
affirming community of love,
learning and mutual support. We are
also called the Unity Mosque, and
with us, you are welcome exactly as
you are.
Good morning. I'm Reverend Debra
Faulk. I have the honour of serving
Calgary Unitarians, the one
Unitarian congregation in our city,
a congregation that welcomes
everyone, whomever they may love,
and wherever you may be on your
spiritual journey. We hold the
inherent worth and dignity of every
person as the primary principle. We
are a congregation that has been
waving the rainbow flag for more
than 20 years, and are feeling so
honored to be sharing this flag
waving with congregations throughout
our city. Wherever you are, whomever
you love, may you have a blessed
Pride, and may we all work and
strive to make this a more welcoming
world.
[Song]
Oki, hello everyone. My name is
[spoken Blackfoot] Dividing Voice.
I'm from Kainai, the Blackfoot tribe
in Southern Alberta, and I welcome
you here today, and I invite you
also to do a smudge. I'll be using
this sage and I use my rock here
that I've shown some people before.
There's a little beaver here. And
these are the paw prints. And I've
had this from the first day before I
sundance, and that's how I earn my
pipe and you have a sweat lodges
through the Sundance. I was praying
down by the river and I caught this
rock there, so the spirits connect
with this, and there were some
beavers that were swimming down at
the river at that time when I did
like this. But I'm honored to be
here today to pray with you. The
[spoken Blackfoot] in Blackfoot is a
male gay person, native person, and
then for a woman, we call them
[spoken Blackfoot], that's a
man-hearted woman, or [spoken
Blackfoot], that's man-woman. So
within this few years, meeting other
native people through Montana, the
northern Paigans, and other people
from Kainai, we found these names
again, through our elders and
meeting with people, so we're really
lucky that we got these names back.
And so anyways, I invite you to pray
in your own language. Creator put us
here on Earth with something special
and that's a language. And so
whichever language we're born into,
it's good to learn that language and
pray in that language, because my
elder - she was my mother in law,
[spoken Blackfoot] - she told me
that there's a spirit in our
language, so to pray in our
language. And when we call our
ancestors and spirits that came to
us in dreams and the animal spirits
and that, when we call them they
hear us and they instantly come to
us. And she said, "Talk out loud,
just like how me and you are talking
to each other. The spirits are
around us and they hear us, and so
it's respect that we just talk loud
to them." In time, as time goes on,
the more you practice, you'll get
better with it, and more confident
and that. So I'm gonna light the
sage right now. And I know some
people say, you know, you have to
use wooden matches to light your
stuff, but me, I use this. You know,
in the old days, we didn't have
wooden matches, we had - we used the
ember from the fire. We'd pick an
ember out of there and we used it,
so we had no wooden matches back
then. So that's just technical
stuff. The important thing is that
we smudge and we pray. That's more
important. And I'm going to use the
sweetgrass. I picked this last week,
so it's always good to use the sage.
I know - I mean, sorry, sweetgrass,
it's always the most important one.
The sage is for cleansing and
cleaning yourself and clearing, you
know. Sweetgrass, it's a spiritual
thing. So in our native way, I've
done - like I asked her, and she
said, four times, in the Blackfoot,
fours are a sacred number, and like
numerology is a sacred thing. So
when you do things using numbers,
it's very powerful to what you are -
when you're doing your ceremonies
and stuff like that. So I'm gonna
put some sage on - sweetgrass.
[Spoken Blackfoot] So I just called
the spirits in the four directions.
You know that's kind of a, you know,
your prayers are always going to be
different, they're not going to be
the same as, you know, like the
prayers that we say, like with "Our
Father" or the Hail Mary prayers.
Your prayers in the Blackfoot way,
they're different because they're
not memorized prayers. They're what
comes from your heart. So it's gonna
always be different every time. So
sometimes I'll say the four
directions, sometimes I'll just say
it a different way. I just want to
explain some things to you while I'm
doing this. This here, it's sweet
pine. This bag was from the old
lady, [Spoken Blackfoot]. When she
passed, her relatives came to give -
come and take some of her stuff. So
she had many things, and this was
one of the things and I cherish it.
And so anyways, this is the sweet
pine that we use, and I put it on
four times. [Spoken Blackfoot]
And we call it [Spoken Blackfoot] in
Blackfoot.
This is called [Spoken Blackfoot].
Anyways, I'll just take my glasses
off.
[Spoken Blackfoot].
[Spoken Blackfoot]
[Spoken Blackfoot] So what I prayed
for was that we have understanding
amongst each other, all the other
people and the races of people in
the world that Creator put us all on
earth together, and that we
understand and care for each other
and learn to get along with each
other. And also for the animals in
the world, the [Spoken Blackfoot],
that's all the different kinds of
animals. [Spoken Blackfoot] is the
earth.
[Spoken Blackfoot], spirits from the
mountains. [Spoken Blackfoot], and
then [Spoken Blackfoot] is the
stars, [Spoken Blackfoot] is the
moon and [spoken Blackfoot] is the
sun. The sun represents Creator to
us. And so I asked prayers from all
of them to help us have
understanding and that we [Spoken
Blackfoot], that we love ourselves.
And that we [Spoken Blackfoot], that
we that we prosper in our life and
that we [Spoken Blackfoot], that we
overcome things, obstacles in our
life. So these are the things that
we pray for, you know, usually, and
to help ourselves. So that's what I
pray here today. And I thank you,
and I'm very happy to be here today
to share this prayer with you and
teachings. And that's what our
elders tell us, is what we - what
they show us, to pass it on to
others. So thank you.
[Song]
Hello. My name is Safa from Unity
Mosque. Assalamu alaikum, may the
peace and mercy of Allah be with you
today. We're hoping to share a
chapter of the Qur’an in both
English and Arabic. The Arabic
remains unchanged since revelation,
and Muslims have always used the
human voice for the call to prayer
and for singing the praises of God.
Zain will be reciting the Arabic. We
don't have time to go into context
of revelation, which is often quite
important in understanding the
Qur’an, but this chapter speaks to
not only the love of Allah in
creating humans from a clot of
blood, but also to the necessity and
importance of humility in defense of
forces of evil that are brought
against us. Some of this intro is
from Yusuf Ali's translation, and
the English that I will read is a
simplified version of Laleh
Bakhtiar’s translation. As Allah is
genderless, we at Unity Mosque will
often refer to he/her or they,
Allahu aalim. This is the 96th
chapter of the Qur’an, Surah at
Alaq. As with everything, we start
with Bismillahir rahman irraheem; in
the name of Allah, the Most
Merciful, the Most Compassionate.
Recite in the name of your Lord, who
has created the human being from a
clot. Recite: your Lord is the most
generous, who taught by the pen, who
taught the human being what they
didn't know. Nay: truly the human
being is defiant when they consider
themselves to be entirely self
sufficient. Truly to your Lord is
the Returning. Have you, yourself,
considered one who prohibits another
when they invoke their blessings?
Have you, yourself, considered if
they were on guidance or commanded
Godfearingness? Have you, yourself,
considered if they deny and turn
away? Do they not know that Allah
sees? Nay: truly if they do not
refrain themselves we shall lay hold
of them by the forelock, have them
call to their conclave, we shall
call the angels of punishment. Nay.
Obey not this human but continue to
prostrate yourself in adoration to
Allah to be near to Her. Sadaq
Allahu atheem.
[Sung Arabic]
Master of wonders, mother of souls,
forgive the darkness in our hearts,
our loss of hope. Pardon our
distraction, our ears closed to the
pleas of the poor, and lead us to
atonement. Master of wonders, mother
of souls, forgive us our circles of
secrecy, knots of guilt, shame and
anger, webs of betrayal and greed.
Pardon the pursuit of happiness that
ends up in worship of self, and lead
us to atonement. Master of wonders,
mother of souls, refuse to forgive
our refusal to forgive. Release our
grudges, hatreds and feuds. Puncture
our stubborn self righteousness, and
lead us to atonement. Master of
wonders, mother of souls, forgive
our vanity in a universe of awe, our
complacency in a universe of need.
Pardon our failure to thank, praise
and salute every soul and every
star, and lead us to atonement.
Master of wonders, mother of souls,
forgive us our disregard and
insolence, our distance from loved
ones and friends. Pardon our daily
inattentiveness, our failure to
notice that we fail to notice, and
lead us to atonement.
From Romans chapter nine, verse 25
to 26.
"This is what the Creator said in
Hosea.
"I will call not my people, my
people, and not Beloved, I will call
Beloved.
And in the place where it was said
to them, You are not my people,
there, they will be called children
of the living God."
From the Gospel of Mark, chapter
nine, verse 14 to 26. When they came
to the other disciples, they saw a
large crowd around them and the
teachers of the law arguing with
them. As soon as the people saw
Jesus, they were overwhelmed with
wonder and ran to greet him. "What
are you arguing about with them?" he
asked. A man in the crowd answered,
'Teacher, I brought you my son who
is possessed by a spirit that has
robbed him of speech. When it seized
him, it throws him to the ground, he
forms at the mouth, gnashes his
teeth and becomes rigid. I asked
your disciples to drive out the
spirit, but they could not." "You
unbelieving generation," Jesus
replied, "How long shall I stay with
you? How long shall I put up with
you? Bring the boy to me." So they
brought him. When the spirit saw
Jesus, it immediately threw the boy
into a convulsion. He fell to the
ground and rolled around foaming at
the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's
father, "How long has he been like
this?" "From childhood," he
answered. "It has often thrown him
into fire or water to kill him. But
if you can do anything, take pity on
us and help us." "'If you can?'"
asked Jesus. "Everything is possible
for one who believes." Immediately
the boy's father exclaimed, "I do
believe! Help me overcome my
unbelief." When Jesus saw that a
crowd was running to the scene, he
rebuked the impure spirit. "You deaf
and mute spirit," he said, "I
command you come out of him and
never enter him again." The spirit
shrieked, convulsed him violently,
and came out. The boy looked so much
like a corpse that many said, "He's
dead."
Hello everyone, I'm Pastor Megan
Rohrer and I am coming to you from
the traditional and unceded lands of
the Ohlone people.
I'm so excited to get to speak to
you today at your city wide pride
service. As a out transgender
pastor, I feel like there are few
opportunities to hear from someone
who is embodied like me, who uses
they/them pronouns like mine, and
who is not afraid, perhaps even
proud to declare that God loves me
just as I am. So much of my life and
my theology, though, I have had to
apologize. I've had to apologize for
pastors who have similar clergy
collars who have done things that I
consider to be unethical. And folk
deserved that apology from me.
I've had to apologize for the fact
that my body, my flaps, and my folds
are different than people expected
them to be for a pastor. I've had to
apologize sometimes for my shoe
choice in worship. And I've had to
apologize for my kids when they get
noisy in church. I've had to
apologize for just honestly anything
that it was easier to apologize for
than to be Christians dwelling in
the fight of it.
One of the beautiful things that
I've gotten to do on the other side
of the apology, like the other end
of that spectrum, is to look into my
ancestry. My 16th great grandfather
- so if you see the word great 16
times, my 16th great grandfather -
turns out is the patron saint of
Switzerland. Bruder Klaus, that
wasn't his, his birth name. His name
was Nicholas. And he was someone who
lived a pretty ordinary life out in
rural Switzerland at the top of a
hill where his family had a farm. He
and his wife had 11 children, which
I guess is how you did farming
before there were tractors. And one
day, because hermits were something
he was fascinated with his entire
life, he looked to his wife
Dorothea, who, tale has it,
was excited when he decided to be a
hermit and left her with the entire
farm to run and all of the children
to care for. Being a hermit in this
time in the 1400s was kind of a fun
and interesting thing. There were
some very famous hermits and Bruder
Klaus's idea was that he was going
to go on a pilgrimage. He was gonna
visit all of the hermits and learn
from them. He was gonna to go on a
prayer quest and learn as much as he
could about God.
But then he didn't.
He went to the bottom of the big
hill where they had their farm,
built a little shack near a river or
a creek, a little babbling brook.
He didn't climb up the mountain to
continue that pilgrimage. And about
a year and a half later his brother
found him there. A couple hundred
yards from the family farm where
Dorothea, tale has it,
was graciously taking care of
everything not knowing how nearby he
had been. So his family and his wife
visited him occasionally. But Bruder
Klaus became someone who was known
as someone who could solve problems.
In his teen years, he was in the
military, and back in these days,
Switzerland wasn't necessarily
neutral. They had such a prominent
army that they would be hired by
other countries to come in and win a
war. And as they marched through
Switzerland to other countries, they
would pillage their own people, in
devastating, unapologetic,
colonization kinds of ways. They
would devastate the women and
children who lived in the area and
they would devastate the land as
they went through it. And so, when
Switzerland was trying to decide
whether or not they should have a
civil war, when they asked Bruder
Klaus's opinion, he gave such an
impassioned speech about why
Switzerland should stop fighting
themselves,
that it prevented the civil war, and
perhaps is part of the origin about
why Switzerland remains neutral in
other conflicts, even to this day.
So Bruder Klaus became the patron
saint of Switzerland by being the
person who is given the credit for
getting them to stop fighting, and
to get them to stop taking advantage
of each other on the way to the
fight. You can, when you go to
Sachseln, climb that same mountain
or take the bus up to Flüeli Ranft.
And you can see the homestead where
Bruder Klaus and his wife Dorothea
lived. You can see a homestead a few
feet away where he was born and
raised, recreations of those cabins.
And then you can climb down the
mountain the short distance, but
steep, so pace yourself. And you can
see the place where he built his
little shack and had his sacred
time. Now, Bruder Klaus became so
popular during his day
that the Pope declared that he
was an indulgence. This is prior to
the Reformation. What that meant was
something kind of like Pokemon Go.
If you touched him, you were
guaranteed that you got to go to
heaven forever, no take backs. So
Bruder Klaus, who had dedicated his
life to not being near people, who
had lived in the woods, was being
chased all over the woods because
people wanted to touch him and be
certain that God would name them and
claim them and love them forever. So
many people started coming that they
built a chapel. And they built a
special, tiny little cell for Bruder
Klaus so he could watch church
through a tiny window, because they
say he only survived eating
communion hosts, which I'm told was
a really thick bread, and, if you
went to church enough, could sustain
you.
But Klaus had a tiny little hole
where he was able to worship and
people weren't able to poke him. He
actually became so popular they
built two churches, and they both
still exist there today, because
people during the summer season go
to visit this home of Bruder Klaus
so often, they have to have two
services simultaneously. At the same
time.
A guy who wanted to be alone has
quite the following.
Visiting his sacred space and
learning a little bit more about
what Klaus was up to was very
transformative to me, because I got
to think about this idea. What if I
genetically am a saint, or connected
to a saint or have the stuff of
saints within me. So much of the
percentage of my life has been
people telling me that I am the
opposite of a saint. I've had people
throw holy water on me. I've had
people sing hymns when they come
nearby. I've received vile letters.
I've had to have people investigated
for stalking.
What if I believed that I could be a
saint?
I've done that thing where we march
around the church and we sing "Oh
When The Saints," but I never
believed it was about me. I've
proclaimed a million times, maybe
not a million, but a lot of times
during baptisms as I mark the sign
of the cross on a child's head that
they are named and claimed forever,
and that they are a beautiful child
of God and the Saint, forever, no
take backs. I believe very deeply
that God exists, that God loves me,
that God is for me and does not
leave me alone.
But I never dared to wonder or be
convinced that I was a saint.
And then I started to think about
it. What if I put as much time and
energy into believing I'm a saint as
I've put into hearing the voices of
people who have said it's not
possible for me to be a saint? What
if instead of always having a
theology of apology,
I could have a trans theology
without apology?
What if I had pride? Pride.
Here in San Francisco, the origin of
the Pride Parade is a little bit
different than people imagine. There
are a lot of stories about people
rioting and throwing bricks through
windows. That was a story that
happened in New York. Here in San
Francisco, although we did have some
uprisings of people saying they
didn't want to take it anymore, in
the paper, the pastors - yes, the
pastors - who organized the very
first Pride Parade in San Francisco
did so because they wanted the
lesbian and gay, the trans,
bisexual, two-spirit,
They wanted all of these communities
to know that they could be proud of
themselves. And they even said, "We
are not gathering to riot. We are
gathering to be proud." How they
chose to do that over the years has
changed, some days that meant
corporate sponsorship was a way to
have freedom. Sometimes it meant
being outward and unapologetic,
flamboyant as possible, as fabulous
and amazing as we could was the way
that we expressed our pride. Other
times it was through political
action and advocacy. The second year
of the Pride Parade, there was
actually a fight. Some people wanted
to wear suits to look like they were
normal, to show that they were
professionals. So they marched in
suit and ties with with protest
signs, and marching backwards
through the crowd was people in
drag, people who weren't normal, who
wanted to proclaim their queerness.
Who wanted people to know they could
be proud wherever they were on the
spectrum. So perhaps the origin of
pride is similar to those
conversations about how to do things
now where it feels like people are
marching in opposite directions.
Yes, pride is loving people wherever
they are politically, whatever level
of fabulousness,
and saying, you don't have to
apologize anymore.
Pride is a God who does everything
to be with us and for us. Pride is a
God who's willing to have there be
stories in the Bible where Jesus
doesn't quite get it right. The
story of the blind man that Jesus
partially heals and has to try again
is a story of human-ness. There have
been moments in my life where I
thought I had it all figured out and
I celebrated with pride before I had
done my homeworkto unlearn the
things I was connected to in the
past.
There were times I celebrated pride
in ways that excluded other
communities. There were times when
my language wasn't sufficient
enough. There were times when I
screwed up all the pronouns, when I
wasn't ready to be out, times when
my pride stomped on other people's
pride.
And so, we have sacred permission to
try again, to do better this time,
and next time, and the time after
that.
Pride is not the opposite of
humility.
Humility is not bragging about
things that are more than you've
done.
Being humble is about not expecting
more praise than you deserve.
I don't expect praise, but I can
have pride in myself. Self
confidence enough
to live through today and tomorrow
and next week and next month.
We are to be people of pride not
because we're showing off, not
because we're better than other
people, but because pride keeps us
alive, because pride is sacred and
because God is proud of us.
What if, when we told stories of
God's beautiful creation, we did it
through this lens of believing we
could be saints?
And we noticed every time God was
proud, even when things changed,
even when people got new names, even
when things evolved,
what if we read creation through the
same lens as Isaiah 55 that tells us
the whole creation celebrates us?
What if you could hear it when you
walk down the street? You're having
a crummy day, but the trees are
cheering for you.
All of creation shouting for joy.
What if we had pride in each other
so that when our pride ran out, we
knew giving up wasn't our only
option because others were going to
hold our pride long enough to get us
through those hard times.
When I read the book of Genesis, I
hear a story of a God who has this
created being from the earth, a they
and a them named Adam, which means
like clay or soil.
In fact, because Adam was the one
who named all of creation, Adam
doesn't name himself so he doesn't
have a name even after he's divided.
Adam, this created one, God wants to
experience love.
So God literally puts Adam to sleep
and surgically divides this being
into two. Ancient rabbis believed
this division happened in lots of
different ways, but when you come
back together, it's a beautiful
whole. But what if we knew God's
original creation looked a lot more
like gender affirmation surgery
Than it did some sort of
prescription to just say "That kind
of human is the best and my
favourite."
What if we get to be modified after
we're born in sacred ways?
Or as Judges tells us, sometimes the
potter, like us, has to re-pot.
It's not always that beautiful scene
like Ghost, with Patrick Swayze
behind Demi Moore making this
beautiful pot on the first try. What
if we are remoulded throughout our
life? What if our bodies are sacred
and beautiful in the ways that they
change?
What if we are adored by God?
This puppet back here, this large
Jesus puppet, is a Black Jesus
puppet that I created for Pride the
last time we got to gather in
person. He's wearing church robes.
He's wearing two rainbow flags made
into a stole. And when he is being
operated by three different
individuals, he holds up a sign that
says "Jesus adores you."
What if we lived our pride?
What if we had a theology of love
rather than apology? And what if at
the end of that we heard God's
booming voice declaring, "You are
mine, and I love you."
You don't have to trek through the
mountains of Switzerland to discover
that you are of sacred bloodlines.
In our bread and our wine, we make
it so.
Those waters of baptism that we put
on foreheads are a reminder that you
can't take it away. God loves you
and is for you. In the midst of this
complicated world where it feels
like things are harder than maybe
they've ever been,
I know for certain God is proud of
me.
And I know for certain, no matter if
anyone has ever lied to you and told
you that it wasn't possible, that
God for some reason was so small
that God couldn't love you,
God doesn't just love you.
God adores you and is so proud of
you.
Live forgiven, claim your wholeness,
and be proud. Amen.
[Song]
As we move into a time of spiritual
centering and of song, of prayer,
and of lighting of candles, we're
reminded of the importance of the
rainbow and the spectrum therein.
This is an excerpt of a sermon by
Reverend Father Mark D. Stuart of
St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal
Church in Hollywood, California.
"The rainbow has a much larger
significance too. It's a gift to us
from the beauty of God's natural
world of refracting diversity from
something that is already at unity:
the sun. One light, many hues of
color. The spirit of God comes to us
not to force submission of the
individual to a triumphalist church
or a totalitarian state. The spirit
refracts one into many hues, tints
and shades. Its unity is a given,
demonstrated in diversity. The many
people, races and cultures from many
countries, men and women, young and
old, gay and straight, are a great
multitude come together, all
speaking the same language of the
magnificent works of God. The
rainbow depends for its strength on
embracing all the colors of the
spectrum. It does not absorb, but
displays the individual's gifts in
order to make it complete and more
brilliant."
Hello, everyone. So we're gonna be
singing this two-spirit song, but
before I do, I'm just gonna light
some more sage. It's always good to
light the sage whenever you're doing
something
spiritual to help. The song here, it
came from a dream, so it's a
spiritual song. It came from the
Spirit. There was a man from the
Osage tribe in Oklahoma and went to
the Montana two-spirit gathering a
few years ago. And so he told me I
could share this song, I could
translate it into my own Blackfoot
language. It's for all sexualities,
different sexualities of people and
genders. And so to help us all
connect together, just like how it
is on the drum here, the colored
people, the native people, and
Oriental and Caucasian people, the
white people, and so this is the
physical world here. This is the
spiritual world where we're
connected. And right in the middle
there's stars there, that's the
Milky Way and, well, we call it the
Wolf Trail, [spoken Blackfoot], and
our stories say that we travel from
the spirit world to the physical
world back and forth. And so we're
connected spiritually, all the
different people in the world. And
so the song helps us to connect, and
I invite you to light a candle or
pray in your own way. And I'll sing
this song for you. The song goes,
"Man had a dream he was traveling,
walking, then he came to this big
hill and down below there was a big
encampment, and they were doing a
round dance, and as he was walking
down to this encampment, the elders
there were very happy to see him,
and they said, 'We were saving this
spot here for you to come back into
our circle of the family, of life,
and the Two Spirit people of
different sexuality and that, to
come back into our family, our
circle of life.'" And that they say
[spoken Blackfoot], we love you, at
the end. And, and so the song - the
words go, [spoken Blackfoot], all
people or the ancient people say,
We've been waiting for you to come
back to the circle of life, and
[spoken Blackfoot], we love you. So
that's the words to this song here.
[sung in Blackfoot]
Blessed are the queer. Blessed are
the wanderers, seeking affirmation.
Blessed are the worshipers, praying
from closets, pulpits, pews, and
hardship. Blessed are the lovers of
leaving, leaving family and
familiarity, leaving tables where
love is not being served. Blessed
are those who stay. Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for
justice, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the queer disciples of
truth, living, breathing, sacred
reflections of divine love. Peace be
with you.
[song]
Thank you so much for joining us for
the second annual city wide pride
service, brought to you by Affirming
Connections and the whole affirming
network of faith communities. You
are meant to be seen, as you are, in
the fullness of who you are. You are
a blessing, and you are definitely
not alone. May the Divine remind us
of our common ground and shared
humanity as we take care of each
other and journey together in the
days to come. And hopefully, we can
see each other soon. Goodbye for
now, and many blessings to you.
[song]
