[pride] Ours is the Task

Ours is the Task: a Litany of Remembrance and Commitment
(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

[pride] Litany of Binding and Loosing

[written for the Kansas City Interfaith Pride service 2014-06-18]
[potentially triggering themes include: suicide, drug use, sex work, murder, and various kinds of shame-fueled self-destructive behavior. And if any of that is too heavy for you to read about right now, know that this is for you, too. Especially for you.]

A Litany of Binding and Loosing

This is for you.

This is for you when you looked in the mirror with loathing.
This is for you when people in power sensed your pain
and used it to hurt you.
This is for you when you hid your true name in the back of your closet
with your shoes and your dresses and your powder compact.
This is for you still living
behind your picket fence.
This is for you bleaching your skin and straightening your hair.
This is for the bone-deep blush
when strangers, colleagues, family, lovers
cut you with humiliating slurs.
This is for you whispering euphemisms,
lighting a match and searching
in the dark
for family.

Many: we bind up your shame and let loose your pride.

This is for you when you damaged your lungs, binding with ACE bandages.
This is for you barebacking and bug-chasing.
This is for you refusing to be tested for HIV.
This is for you downing uppers and booze
This is for you when you knew
that only johns would want to touch you
This is for you when you knew
that you'd never marry.
This is for you with a knife in your hand
with a gun to your temple
at the end of a bridge

This is for you every time you make choices
Like you have no future.

And this is for our siblings
who didn't make it this far.

Many: we bind up your despair and let loose your hope.

This is for you, denied hormones
by insurance companies, doctors, therapists
every institution who knew you only as an illness.
This is for you, unemployed because you came to interviews dressed up as yourself,
and you eliding for your co-workers the genders of your spouse,
and you fired because of who you married.
This is for you homeless
because you're denied housing,
denied work,
denied hope.
This is for you, named unfit to parent.
This is for you imprisoned for defending yourself.
This is for you, Sylvia, and for you, Marsha,
rejected by the movement you incited.
This is for you, my trans sisters, especially for you
for every time the rest of us refused to name you
and sold your rights in exchange for
broken promises that we'd be given ours.

And this is for you when you're dead
and your murderers walk free.

Many: we bind up all forms of oppression and let loose your justice.

And this is for you, too,
beribboned in rainbows and dancing your truth
radiant on your wedding day,
glittering at Missie B's,
splendidly strong and courageously meek.
This is for you working for a pittance at nonprofits
giving voice to lost stories
and lifting strangers into
your heart's tomorrow.

Many: we bind up your apathy and indifference, your hurt and your exhaustion, your painful past and uncertain future, and we let you loose to heal all that is broken in your heart, in your community, in our world.

[liturgy] Outing God: Prayers of Confession and Forgiveness for National Coming Out Day

One: Abram, scared, said, "Sarai's my sister, not my wife."
Many: We've evaded.
One: Naomi, bitter, told Ruth, "Marry a man, it's easier."
Many: We've bearded ourselves.
One: Jonah, angry, abandoned God's calling and tried to live a different life.
Many: We've run away.
One: Peter, terrified, denied he knew Jesus.
Many: We've lied.
One: Like the saints throughout the ages, we've tried to hide,
Many: and in hiding ourselves, we've closeted YOU.
One: Scared of your truth, we've hidden in lies. We deny the lives you gave us and the ways you made us. We stay in the closet. We live double lives. We are cautious and careful. We avoid the truth. We internalize shame. We hate the children you love.
Many: Forgive us.


One: Beloved, I share with you good news. The God who made you has been closeted too, by false prophets and idolaters who worship law instead of God. Hear this truth: God is wildly in love with you and made you exactly as you are, a precious child, a beloved friend, a cherished partner in the work of re-creating the world.

God will use you to give birth to nations and beget kings. Through you God proclaims forgiveness to sinners and Good News to all peoples. God is hidden in your heart and revealed in your life. God lurks in your shadows, whispering hope. God sleeps in your secrets, dreaming of truth.

God knows your true name, your passions, your fears. God loves you and wants to share you with the whole world.

Many: God, we love you, and want to share you with the whole world.

One: Some name you as Father,
Many: and we know you as our strong Mother and tender Daddy, as a wise Grandmother who gentles her grandbaby and as an ecstatic new Parent who rejoices at every marvelous fingernail of hir new child.
One: Some name you as a human rabbi,
Many: and we know you as the Child of God, the eternally creating Word who took flesh for our sake and delighted to be vulnerable with us. We know you as Wisdom, handmaiden of the Most High, who lived and taught among us.
One: Some name you as divine, infallible, impassible
Many: and we know you as one of us, exhausted by travel and hungry for bread, angry and sad, sarcastic and kind, bound by old prejudices and challenged by God, a mortal sinner like us who saved us forever from sin and death.
One: Some say you are dead.
Many: We know that You live.
One: Some claim to understand you.
Many: We love you in a paradox.
One: Some say that you hate us,
Many: and we know that's not true.
One: Some think your work is finished,
Many: and we receive your challenge, acknowledge your forgiveness, accept your grace, and name you as our own, our Creator, our Savior, our Comfort.


One: Beloved, will you come out?
Many: With God as our guide, we will search ourselves, and with God as our companion, we will live with integrity. We will reclaim the pieces of ourselves that we've forgotten and abandoned, rejected and denied, loving ourselves as God loves us.

One: Beloved, will you out God?
Many: When evil is done in God's name, we will do good more boldly. Where injustice dwells in God's church, we will exorcise it. We will reclaim the sacred book that's been turned into a weapon. We will reclaim the sacred house that's become a den of thieves. We will reclaim the name of God that's been used to instill fear and to separate God's children from each other. We will reclaim the name Christian and live in the world as little Christs, sharing gentle justice and fierce love.

One: Go, then, and bring God out with you into the world.
Many: We go in peace; thanks be to God.