A Heartache Shared is a Heartache Soothed

 

Gay Pride Parades were suspended during pandemic days, as were most sporting, entertainment, patriotic, religious festivities. But the news purveyors told us that they were back in June. Not that it mattered one way or the other if you weren’t living in an urban area with enough people—gay and Cis—to mount such an event or, conversely, to complain about the disruption to traffic or the assault on decorum.

I think I get the need for a pride display, for saying in an in-your-face way that “this is who I am and whether you like it or not, I’m not apologizing for it.” Considering centuries of outright and open abuse of non-cis persons—queers—the acceptance as whole-and-equal human beings has been a monumental struggle for which the building and maintaining of a support community has been vital. We don’t have Straight Pride Parades for a very simple reason; straight peoples are not facing the threat of persecution or discriminationon account of their sexual orientation and/or gender exceptionality. The persons marching in the Pride Parades are.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up with a keen sensitivity to what’s public and what’s private—and should remain private. Sexual acts from even the mildest gestures of affection in public to fornicating in the park in broad daylight to any kind of voyeurism, displays of nudity, verbal references to sexual acts, all these were anathema. Meanwhile, the body’s longing for sexual gratification and physical intimacy lived on in virtually everyone and the grasping for it—secretly, mostly—resulted in both the sneaky voyeurism of boys, particularly, and the goes-without-saying conviction that sin’s very name is “sex.” Bad enough that anyone should admit to sexual feelings except in prescribed tidbits and euphemisms, to be found out to have longings not coincidental with heterosexual assumptions, well, that was so far beyond the pale as to be unthinkable.

It must not only be hidden, but doubly and triply secreted.

Maybe Pride Parades are equivalent to tearing off a huge bandage from the woundedness inflicted by undeserved guilt and the sense of worthlessness inflicted in so many ways in so many cultures. The euphoria displayed in these parades is totally understandable when seen in the light of the history of suppression ands scorn borne by so many living under the blanket of unacceptability for however long. To be in a parade, probably, is like, “I’m free here, I’m loved here, I’m equal here; my world is an open book.”

But—and I admit this reluctantly—I’d viscerally, emotionally have sexuality remain a secret. Something wants me to refrain from cheering a Pride Parade. Intellectually, I tend to think that they highlight differences while doing little to reinforce that equality that thrives on commonality, not on “us and them” thinking. Emotionally, it would be naïve to assume that 80 years of living in a  homophobic culture wouldn’t have left traces of “at least, don’t parade your sexuality in front of me” sensitivity.

My faith informs me mightily when faced with, for instance, the struggle of gay people to be acceptable as they are, as have the responses my faith brothers and sisters have shown to the emancipation of gay persons. The path which non-sinful sexuality had traditionally been prescribed was very narrow. At the same time, that Jesus “ate and drank with sinners” was a charge laid by the temple authority, implying that he should be eating and drinking with them, the not-sinners. What more gospel does anyone really need? 

The essential humanity, the image of God, if you like, is the legacy of every person living, a legacy that should never be abridged or scorned, mocked or murdered. Unless that’s true, the whole concept of humanity’s creation by a loving god is also false by its own definitions.

To stifle the reaching out of spirit to spirit is to approve a world as we find it today. A world where who you are doesn’t matter; what you do, what you look like as compared to the status quo is evidence enough for judgment to fall upon you. The purpose of the gospel's teaching is an urging toward loving God (the creative/recreative universe) and toward being to your neighbour as you would have your neighbour be to you. That’s the great commission[i] in a nutshell. It’s so badly overwritten by the evangelical right wing’s prosperity, medievalist thinking as to make the gospel unrecognizable. 

In a sermon at EMC last Sunday, guest speaker Ken Bechtel raised the question of the definition of “the true Christian,” which he said, includes, at least, that one’s heart aches for the same people and realities for which the heart of God/Christ aches.

A mother sees her child who’s “different” being bullied and rejected in the neighbourhood. What she feels daily is for us a definition of heartache. Every Christian on earth feels that heartache, refuses to join the world in adding a big “but” to any discussion of the young man’s, the mother’s heartache.  

And Jesus said, “you must be to your neighbour as you wish your neighbour would be to you,” and not one dared to say, “but ….!"

Meanwhile, I didn’t do much of anything to recognize June as Pride Month; I live in Rosthern (pop. 1700), not Saskatoon, or Winnipeg or Toronto. Were I fit enough, I could have engaged in the Pride Parade in Saskatoon on June 18^th, but I’m not and didn’t, so I’ll leave the last word to the organizers: “Recognizing, valuing, celebrating, and supporting Two Spirit, queer, lesbian, gay, trans, bi, and other gender and sexually-diverse peoples and their families.”

A heartache shared is a heartache soothed.

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[i] In church history, the “Great Commission” follows on Jesus’ “Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” Mark 16:15. There’s no disputing that this is a consistent theme throughout the New Testament. Christ also told the teachers of the law that to love God and your neighbour was the totality of all law. (Matthew 22:39) Which of these is heading and which is sub-heading is debatable.