(Written for the Kansas City Pride Interfaith Service 2017-05-31)
Credits:
The core of the Litany that we’re about to say comes from the novel Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearheart.
[Gearhart, Sally Miller. The wanderground: stories of the hill women. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1984. Print. Page 196]
I was reading this novel when my friend Jeane died in 2000, which is probably why the ritual of grief that ends the novel engraved itself into my heart.
If you so believe, then so it is:
Ours is the task,
Yours is the passing.
And, although you may, you may not come again.
If you so believe, then so it is
If you so believe, then so it is
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
And although you may, you may not come again.
And although you may, you may not come again.
We gather tonight as people of many faiths and none, believers and wanderers, pilgrims and proselytes, converts and clergy. We believe in many Gods and none, in many paths to many destinations.
We believe in the transforming power of community and of faith itself.
If you so believe, then so it is
If you so believe, then so it is
We gather tonight to promise each other, our communities, our Gods and our universe that we will stand together for justice.
We are many people, of many faiths, many colors, many genders. We have many ways of worshiping, many ways of loving.
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
Ours is the task of building bridges out of our differences, weaving flags in many colors, writing poetry in many languages, learning from one another and loving those we do not understand.
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
Ours is the task of telling our stories, naming our heroes, remembering our ancestors. Ours is the task of insisting that trans women of color and homeless youth are not erased from our memory of Stonewall. Ours is the task of honoring the messy, complex identities of our forebears without collapsing them into the categories that we prefer today.
Ours is the task of reminding the world that we were not the first men to marry men, not the first women to kiss women, not the first people to realize that gender binaries can’t hold us.
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
Ours is the task of solidarity. It is ours to realize that when any people suffer, when any people are not free, when any people live in danger, we must work for liberation.
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
It is our task to be specific and fearless. It is our task to practice saying, "lesbian," "gay," "bisexual," "transgender," and "queer" precisely and clearly.
It is our task to protect Muslim women riding the bus.
It is our task to end child marriage in all fifty states.
It is our task to raise the minimum wage.
It is our task to write and speak, to remember and pray, to comfort and grieve, to protest and publicize and protect. It’s ours to give what we can from what’s been given to us.
Ours is the task
Ours is the task
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
Beloved ancestors: Harvey Milk, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Leslie Fienberg, Brenda Howard, Audre Lorde, women and men and queers of all genders, people of all kinds, to whom we owe our communities, people remembered and people lost to history –
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
Beloved ancestors who died in the closet, who never found names for yourselves, whose names we’ll never know:
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
Beloved generation lost to AIDS, dying fearlessly on statehouse steps:
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
Beloved who have been martyred recently:
The 49 victims of shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando
Gay and bisexual men murdered in Chechnya
Brenda Bostick, Sherrell Faulkner, and nine other transgender women of color killed this year in this country:
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
We name the horror of your deaths and the beauty of your lives, and with hope and doubt, with faith and fear, we remember you, we honor you, and in your name we say
OURS is the task
Ours is the task
Yours is the passing
Yours is the passing
And although you may,
And although you may,
You may not come again
you may not come again
