24 July 2013
The requisite post about Shabbat Nachamu
So I'm a little behind on this blog, and Shabbat Nachamu was a few days ago. The observance of it is poignant for me this year, as Shabbat Nachamu is a reminder that there's hope. Even in the darkest times, when it seems like the end of the world as we know it, we are reminded that hope is real and also external to us. When we have lost hope it still exists somewhere outside of us, and we need only locate it.
17 July 2013
Unanswered questions
I've been trying to write a post about remembering my love and I don't know what to write. Do I write that I am still devastated by her loss on a daily basis? Do I write that I'm terrified that Mr. Boy will meet the same demise she did? Do I write that thirteen years is long enough for someone to become responsible, and I can see it in her fourteen-year-old brother? Do I write that I wanted to escape, because I still don't want to deal with her loss? Do I write that I'm conflicted as I start to let go and move forward? Do I write about how weird I feel in the moments when I notice how similar Mr. Boy is to her? Do I write that this is the hardest year yet? Do I write that I feel lost without her even as I find direction in my life?
16 July 2013
If Tisha b'Av falls on Rosh Jodesh, do you fast?
The title of the above refers to a trivia question I once answered. It's a trick question, because Tisha b'Av means the ninth day of the month of av, so it can never fall on Rosh Jodesh, which is the first day of the month. That said, if Tisha b'Av falls on Shabbat, you commemorate it the next day instead.
Last night, I attended Mishkan's Tisha b'Av observance, which included Ma'ariv, Reading of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations), and a conversation about our sadness and love when it comes to Israel. As a Tisha b'Av observance, it was the closest I have come to my Tisha b'Av experiences at OSRUI - meaningful, hot, and at some points frustrating. The pain in the room was real and the mood somber, but somehow, in leaving with the brokenness of the day, I came out more whole.
I did not grow up with a Tisha b'Av observance in my family. As someone with staunch Reform upbringing, Tisha b'Av was (for those who knew about it) considered an inappropriate holiday to commemorate because the Reform Movement does not believe the destruction of the Temple to be a bad thing, and therefore does not mourn the event. However, Tisha b'Av was commemorated at my summer camp, in a beautiful fashion that bestowed the day with contemporary meaning for this mourning. We talked about sinat jinam, the senseless hatred that Jews see as our part in the destruction of the Temple. But more than that, the ritual was well-crafted to imbue the day with sorrow and with connection to the history of the Jewish people: tragedies and persecution included. Living in a time of relative peace and privilege for Jews, this connection was new for me. I am here because my ancestors responded to persecution by making themselves stronger, because the response to the question eicha has been that part is under our control. We find things we could have done better even when we recognize that others are responsible for inflicting violence, persecution, and genocide on us. We could sit in our hatred of them or of God, but instead we reflect on what it is about us and the way we live that exacerbates the damage done to us by others.
I remember that unit heads carried the Torah from our units to Port Hall as the rest of us joined hands and walked singing Don McLean's "By the Waters of Babylon." We entered Port Hall where we snaked around and joined hands with other units as well until everyone had entered and we sat on the ground. Passages of Eicha were chanted in Hebrew and read in English, and the list of tragedies that ostensibly occurred on Tisha b'Av was read: destruction of the first Temple, destruction of the second Temple, the start of the first crusade, expulsion of the Jews from England, expulsion of the Jews from France, expulsion of the Jews from Spain, declaration of the Final solution, and the beginning of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (not to mention the Toraitic events that the rabbis associated with the day). The history of how each Torah came to be at camp was recounted, with background information of situations of persecution and how Torahs were rescued if that was the case. Esa einai was often sung, and we walked back after in silence, which was not a common sensory experience at camp. The next day (Jewish days start at sundown and go to sundown) we would bury religious texts that were no longer usable in the camp genizah. I don't know how the custom of adding to a genizah became associated with Tisha b'Av, but my conjecture is that Jews find the loss of text to be of similar importance to the crash of an entire way of life. I carry nostalgia for that Tisha b'Av experience: the sense of connection to my people when all seems lost, and of being able to take concrete action to mourn the past but also of being able to take concrete action to build a better future.
The observance last night included "By the Waters of Babylon" and traditional kinot. It included chanting of Eicha and reading it in English. We sat on a hard floor in the summer heat, and although candles burned, we started before sundown and the effect was not one of darkness. And we had a "conversation" about Israel, which is a topic that many in the Jewish world see as so divisive that we only talk with like-minded folks. I put conversation in quotes because it wasn't a conversation in the usual sense. We were first asked to consider where our love comes from when it comes to Israel and where our sadness comes from when it comes from Israel. We were given paper and pens to write our thoughts and some time (although not enough) to consider. Then we were asked to listen to those who volunteered to share. This was an exercise in "vulnerable listening," we were told, which apparently means being attentive and nonjudgmental toward the speaker, but also not to display any emotional reaction you may be having. Sharers were to take no more than three minutes each and were instructed to give their names at the beginning of what they said, speak in "I language," and say "Thank you for listening" at the end, to which the response from the community was "Thank you." These stipulations led one person to comment that it felt like a "Jews Anonymous" meeting. I think these regulations were necessary for people to feel safe sharing about a sensitive subject, but by no means did they engender conversation. Sharers could only focus their comments on their own experiences and feelings, which prevented anything I would call conversation (questions asked an answered, deeper thoughts provoked, progression of ideas possible) from taking place. It was uncomfortable to listen to people vent their frustrations about Israel. It was hard to maintain a non-emotional face listening as things I disagreed with or agreed with whole-heartedly were said, and especially as others bared their souls, it was hard to resist impulses to comfort. The discomfort and pain were fitting for the day. After the discussion and the reading, we had more space for singing and meditating on loss. Then we had Ma'ariv (no, not traditional, but again, we started before sundown). We spoke Ma'ariv, which gives an eerie quality to prayer, and is traditional, as music might increase the enjoyment of the experience, and the idea is that one is praying out of spite because one is in too much pain to do otherwise, and we left, only speaking what was necessary to clean up the space after use. I walked to the Red Line in silence and rode home, also in silence. To allow ourselves time to process pain and grow from it is extremely powerful.
Last night, I attended Mishkan's Tisha b'Av observance, which included Ma'ariv, Reading of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations), and a conversation about our sadness and love when it comes to Israel. As a Tisha b'Av observance, it was the closest I have come to my Tisha b'Av experiences at OSRUI - meaningful, hot, and at some points frustrating. The pain in the room was real and the mood somber, but somehow, in leaving with the brokenness of the day, I came out more whole.
I did not grow up with a Tisha b'Av observance in my family. As someone with staunch Reform upbringing, Tisha b'Av was (for those who knew about it) considered an inappropriate holiday to commemorate because the Reform Movement does not believe the destruction of the Temple to be a bad thing, and therefore does not mourn the event. However, Tisha b'Av was commemorated at my summer camp, in a beautiful fashion that bestowed the day with contemporary meaning for this mourning. We talked about sinat jinam, the senseless hatred that Jews see as our part in the destruction of the Temple. But more than that, the ritual was well-crafted to imbue the day with sorrow and with connection to the history of the Jewish people: tragedies and persecution included. Living in a time of relative peace and privilege for Jews, this connection was new for me. I am here because my ancestors responded to persecution by making themselves stronger, because the response to the question eicha has been that part is under our control. We find things we could have done better even when we recognize that others are responsible for inflicting violence, persecution, and genocide on us. We could sit in our hatred of them or of God, but instead we reflect on what it is about us and the way we live that exacerbates the damage done to us by others.
I remember that unit heads carried the Torah from our units to Port Hall as the rest of us joined hands and walked singing Don McLean's "By the Waters of Babylon." We entered Port Hall where we snaked around and joined hands with other units as well until everyone had entered and we sat on the ground. Passages of Eicha were chanted in Hebrew and read in English, and the list of tragedies that ostensibly occurred on Tisha b'Av was read: destruction of the first Temple, destruction of the second Temple, the start of the first crusade, expulsion of the Jews from England, expulsion of the Jews from France, expulsion of the Jews from Spain, declaration of the Final solution, and the beginning of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (not to mention the Toraitic events that the rabbis associated with the day). The history of how each Torah came to be at camp was recounted, with background information of situations of persecution and how Torahs were rescued if that was the case. Esa einai was often sung, and we walked back after in silence, which was not a common sensory experience at camp. The next day (Jewish days start at sundown and go to sundown) we would bury religious texts that were no longer usable in the camp genizah. I don't know how the custom of adding to a genizah became associated with Tisha b'Av, but my conjecture is that Jews find the loss of text to be of similar importance to the crash of an entire way of life. I carry nostalgia for that Tisha b'Av experience: the sense of connection to my people when all seems lost, and of being able to take concrete action to mourn the past but also of being able to take concrete action to build a better future.
The observance last night included "By the Waters of Babylon" and traditional kinot. It included chanting of Eicha and reading it in English. We sat on a hard floor in the summer heat, and although candles burned, we started before sundown and the effect was not one of darkness. And we had a "conversation" about Israel, which is a topic that many in the Jewish world see as so divisive that we only talk with like-minded folks. I put conversation in quotes because it wasn't a conversation in the usual sense. We were first asked to consider where our love comes from when it comes to Israel and where our sadness comes from when it comes from Israel. We were given paper and pens to write our thoughts and some time (although not enough) to consider. Then we were asked to listen to those who volunteered to share. This was an exercise in "vulnerable listening," we were told, which apparently means being attentive and nonjudgmental toward the speaker, but also not to display any emotional reaction you may be having. Sharers were to take no more than three minutes each and were instructed to give their names at the beginning of what they said, speak in "I language," and say "Thank you for listening" at the end, to which the response from the community was "Thank you." These stipulations led one person to comment that it felt like a "Jews Anonymous" meeting. I think these regulations were necessary for people to feel safe sharing about a sensitive subject, but by no means did they engender conversation. Sharers could only focus their comments on their own experiences and feelings, which prevented anything I would call conversation (questions asked an answered, deeper thoughts provoked, progression of ideas possible) from taking place. It was uncomfortable to listen to people vent their frustrations about Israel. It was hard to maintain a non-emotional face listening as things I disagreed with or agreed with whole-heartedly were said, and especially as others bared their souls, it was hard to resist impulses to comfort. The discomfort and pain were fitting for the day. After the discussion and the reading, we had more space for singing and meditating on loss. Then we had Ma'ariv (no, not traditional, but again, we started before sundown). We spoke Ma'ariv, which gives an eerie quality to prayer, and is traditional, as music might increase the enjoyment of the experience, and the idea is that one is praying out of spite because one is in too much pain to do otherwise, and we left, only speaking what was necessary to clean up the space after use. I walked to the Red Line in silence and rode home, also in silence. To allow ourselves time to process pain and grow from it is extremely powerful.
10 July 2013
Would You Risk Arrest to Get Married?
Indiana law defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. Indiana law also imposes strict penalties for perjury in marriage applications or for applying for marriage when ineligible and penalties for clergy that officiate at marriages which are done under false pretenses. These laws have been on the books for years.
However, a new law restructuring Indiana penal code makes it easier to prosecute and convict folks for such crimes starting July 2014. The practical implication of these changes, given the realities on the ground in my home state, is that the combination of these laws will be used to brand as criminals same-sex couples and the clergy who marry them. It is a felony in Indiana for people to ask the government to look at a piece of paper.
I wish I could say that since I moved out of Indiana, the shenanigans of the state don't bother me as much as they did when I lived there. However, they bother me more, I suppose, because I have no say in the matter anymore.
There are obvious objections to the ways the laws work together, and it remains to be seen whether any enforcement measures will be taken based on them. I wonder if I would risk eighteen months in jail to apply for a marriage license. Would you?
However, a new law restructuring Indiana penal code makes it easier to prosecute and convict folks for such crimes starting July 2014. The practical implication of these changes, given the realities on the ground in my home state, is that the combination of these laws will be used to brand as criminals same-sex couples and the clergy who marry them. It is a felony in Indiana for people to ask the government to look at a piece of paper.
I wish I could say that since I moved out of Indiana, the shenanigans of the state don't bother me as much as they did when I lived there. However, they bother me more, I suppose, because I have no say in the matter anymore.
There are obvious objections to the ways the laws work together, and it remains to be seen whether any enforcement measures will be taken based on them. I wonder if I would risk eighteen months in jail to apply for a marriage license. Would you?
07 July 2013
Showing My Parents the Gayborhood
So my parents were in town last weekend to see some museum exhibits. While visiting Chicago, they came with me to Mishkan, which for Pride Shabbat was at Anshe Emet, on the north end of Boystown. My parents have been to Chicago more times than I can easily count, but they had never been to Boystown. So, after Kabbalat Shabbat, an awesome Ma'ariv, and a wonderful dinner with rainbow-sprinkled challah which reminded my mother of the challah made by Fantasia Bakery in San Francisco when she was growing up, I took my parents for a stroll down Halsted from Broadway to Belmont.
My parents grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and are fairly liberal and accepting, if not up on current terminology. However, Pride parades, or parades of any sort, are not their style, so I didn't invite them to go to Sunday's festivities. As we walked, I shared a little about the history of Boystown, and pointed out the "famous" places, as well as my favorite places. Upon seeing a drag queen outside of Roscoe's, my father remarked, "OK, now we're here." My mom was a little shocked that "they still have bathhouses."
My parents grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and are fairly liberal and accepting, if not up on current terminology. However, Pride parades, or parades of any sort, are not their style, so I didn't invite them to go to Sunday's festivities. As we walked, I shared a little about the history of Boystown, and pointed out the "famous" places, as well as my favorite places. Upon seeing a drag queen outside of Roscoe's, my father remarked, "OK, now we're here." My mom was a little shocked that "they still have bathhouses."
03 July 2013
The Stuff I Find it Hard to Talk About: Shame, Stigma, Privacy, and Calculated Vulnerability
On Saturday, Mr. Boy checked himself into a psychiatric hospital because part of him wanted to kill himself while part of him did not. He checked himself in voluntarily and without persuasion from any other person. At some point, he stopped taking his medications, and taking them helps him stay healthy. He is exactly where he needs to be to get better.
I'm a big proponent of self care. Steps we take to ensure our health and well-being are both good and necessary, and when the step we have to take to do that is putting ourselves in a situation where we can't harm ourselves, we should not be afraid to do so. Yet, we are ashamed when we take this step to protect our lives. We feel like worthless failures for ending up in a position of vulnerability we cannot control. I have been on Mr. Boy's side of this equation. When the best thing I could do to survive was ask for help, I felt broken - not because I wanted to die (that felt normal at the time) but because I needed help not to. The physicality of living is an unconscious process. When it becomes conscious, we feel broken. Despite the modern understanding of such brokenness as illness, we feel it as shame.
So Mr. Boy feels ashamed that he "let himself get to the point" of needing to take this step. I'm grateful that he's taking this step rather than killing himself. But I'm also ashamed. I'm ashamed that the strength of his life and our relationship is not enough to give him reasons to live, even as I know that it's not about that, and if it were, any reasons for him to stay alive need to be internal to him.
I find myself talking around Mr. Boy's illness. My boyfriend, I say, is in the hospital. They're monitoring him; he'll be ok. I told my parents he was in the hospital, but refused to answer questions about why or where. They were supportive of me when I ended up in psych wards, but somehow it feels like my failure that Mr. Boy ended up in one. I told them he's likely to be in the hospital for a few weeks, which is true, but have not elaborated.
With people I am not quite so close to, I find myself worried about how they'll judge Mr. Boy or me if they find out he has a mental illness. The stigma surrounding mental illness is real and often unconscious. I have no way to predict how my friends and coworkers will react. In addition, there's a part of me that views this as a private matter. It's something that is nobody else's business. Most of my friends still do not yet know Mr. Boy, so they have no investment in the situation other than how it affects me. And I feel like it shouldn't affect me. Mr. Boy is sick, and is getting medical attention. There's nothing else to say, and there's nothing to worry about it.
But it affects me. I feel like part of me that is in relationship with him is on hiatus because he can't respond to me with a sparkle in his eye. I feel sad that my dearheart wants to kill himself because I see how valuable he is in the world and it hurts that he doesn't see it. I feel torn as I place my commitments to my job and my own self care such that I can't go see him every day (the hospital has very limited visiting hours). I feel shut down as I put my worries over his well-being aside to get through my day. I feel that my love for him is being strengthened by this experience and grateful to be able to pray about it honestly. I feel lonely, like no one has ever been through what I've been through even as I reach out to people I know have been in my situation. I feel distracted from the joys and sorrows of my friends and the world because my thoughts, when not focused on work are focused on him. I feel amazed that I can care that way about another person. I feel angry that he has to go through this. I feel honored that I have become close enough to him that he wants to see me even though he feels broken. I feel overwhelmed by all of this. I feel vulnerable, and not the calculated vulnerability that I can use to be an effective organizer, but scared, vulnerable, and squishy (I'm looking to see if anyone has a pointy stick). I feel like the person I would go to to help me deal with this is absent, but that what I want to be able to do is curl up in his arms and cry. I feel like I can't express this in my daily interactions. I find myself directing the shaming anti-sissy rhetoric that my flaming boy disdains at myself. I tell myself to man up or butch up, that crying is something I need to wait until I'm home alone to do, that it's not ok to feel less than happy or fulfilled, that I need to pretend that everything is fine, and I need to protect myself from the inference that I am weak.
And it's hard to talk about. Even with the select few people I've reached out to, it's hard to say what I mean. I don't even know that I've managed to here, but at least I tried.
Because I don't know how to close this with my own words, here are Rainer Maria Rilke's, as translated by Stephen Mitchell:
I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.
I'm a big proponent of self care. Steps we take to ensure our health and well-being are both good and necessary, and when the step we have to take to do that is putting ourselves in a situation where we can't harm ourselves, we should not be afraid to do so. Yet, we are ashamed when we take this step to protect our lives. We feel like worthless failures for ending up in a position of vulnerability we cannot control. I have been on Mr. Boy's side of this equation. When the best thing I could do to survive was ask for help, I felt broken - not because I wanted to die (that felt normal at the time) but because I needed help not to. The physicality of living is an unconscious process. When it becomes conscious, we feel broken. Despite the modern understanding of such brokenness as illness, we feel it as shame.
So Mr. Boy feels ashamed that he "let himself get to the point" of needing to take this step. I'm grateful that he's taking this step rather than killing himself. But I'm also ashamed. I'm ashamed that the strength of his life and our relationship is not enough to give him reasons to live, even as I know that it's not about that, and if it were, any reasons for him to stay alive need to be internal to him.
I find myself talking around Mr. Boy's illness. My boyfriend, I say, is in the hospital. They're monitoring him; he'll be ok. I told my parents he was in the hospital, but refused to answer questions about why or where. They were supportive of me when I ended up in psych wards, but somehow it feels like my failure that Mr. Boy ended up in one. I told them he's likely to be in the hospital for a few weeks, which is true, but have not elaborated.
With people I am not quite so close to, I find myself worried about how they'll judge Mr. Boy or me if they find out he has a mental illness. The stigma surrounding mental illness is real and often unconscious. I have no way to predict how my friends and coworkers will react. In addition, there's a part of me that views this as a private matter. It's something that is nobody else's business. Most of my friends still do not yet know Mr. Boy, so they have no investment in the situation other than how it affects me. And I feel like it shouldn't affect me. Mr. Boy is sick, and is getting medical attention. There's nothing else to say, and there's nothing to worry about it.
But it affects me. I feel like part of me that is in relationship with him is on hiatus because he can't respond to me with a sparkle in his eye. I feel sad that my dearheart wants to kill himself because I see how valuable he is in the world and it hurts that he doesn't see it. I feel torn as I place my commitments to my job and my own self care such that I can't go see him every day (the hospital has very limited visiting hours). I feel shut down as I put my worries over his well-being aside to get through my day. I feel that my love for him is being strengthened by this experience and grateful to be able to pray about it honestly. I feel lonely, like no one has ever been through what I've been through even as I reach out to people I know have been in my situation. I feel distracted from the joys and sorrows of my friends and the world because my thoughts, when not focused on work are focused on him. I feel amazed that I can care that way about another person. I feel angry that he has to go through this. I feel honored that I have become close enough to him that he wants to see me even though he feels broken. I feel overwhelmed by all of this. I feel vulnerable, and not the calculated vulnerability that I can use to be an effective organizer, but scared, vulnerable, and squishy (I'm looking to see if anyone has a pointy stick). I feel like the person I would go to to help me deal with this is absent, but that what I want to be able to do is curl up in his arms and cry. I feel like I can't express this in my daily interactions. I find myself directing the shaming anti-sissy rhetoric that my flaming boy disdains at myself. I tell myself to man up or butch up, that crying is something I need to wait until I'm home alone to do, that it's not ok to feel less than happy or fulfilled, that I need to pretend that everything is fine, and I need to protect myself from the inference that I am weak.
And it's hard to talk about. Even with the select few people I've reached out to, it's hard to say what I mean. I don't even know that I've managed to here, but at least I tried.
Because I don't know how to close this with my own words, here are Rainer Maria Rilke's, as translated by Stephen Mitchell:
I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.
02 July 2013
A Prayer for Queer Folk
אב הרחמים, gender-fuck father whose compassion cradles us like a mother cares for a newborn, we appealed to you in our darkest moments of internalizing the pain the world directs at us. We cried out to you during beatings in alleys, with our heads in toilets, when our partners and friends died of AIDS, and, of course, when we finally let ourselves be free to enjoy the sex we wanted to have. We asked you to put an end to our suffering, sometimes by ending our own lives. We created communities of our own to let your love in when the world told us we were hated.
From the depths of the gutters we slept in when we were kicked out of our parents' homes, we called out to you and you answered us with the great expanse of a friendly drag queen's heel and her hand extended to pull us up and sit us down on the nearest bar stool. You answered us in the still small voice of a goth girl techie who taught us oh those many uses for gaffer's tape. You comforted us with show tunes, Gloria Gaynor, and the Indigo Girls. You gave us the strength of each other which led us to have the courage not only to come into our own but to come out to the world. You marched with us on Christopher Street and Folsom Street. You cried with us as we lost amazing women to transphobia, and you learned with us as we developed and refined queer theory.
From the depths of the gutters we slept in when we were kicked out of our parents' homes, we called out to you and you answered us with the great expanse of a friendly drag queen's heel and her hand extended to pull us up and sit us down on the nearest bar stool. You answered us in the still small voice of a goth girl techie who taught us oh those many uses for gaffer's tape. You comforted us with show tunes, Gloria Gaynor, and the Indigo Girls. You gave us the strength of each other which led us to have the courage not only to come into our own but to come out to the world. You marched with us on Christopher Street and Folsom Street. You cried with us as we lost amazing women to transphobia, and you learned with us as we developed and refined queer theory.
Some of us had faith in You from the beginning, and some of us still don't have faith in You. Some of us rejected You when others told us You hated us, and some of us only found You when humanity abandoned us. You are invoked all around us, but we lost hope in Your deliverance. We lost hope when people made in Your image killed our brother Matthew Shepard and our sister Rita Hester. Some of us lost faith but all of us lost hope. We lost hope when we woke up with survivor's guilt when we survived the AIDS crisis. We lost hope when kids continued to kill themselves even after Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres came out and so many others followed. We lost hope when Mark Carson was killed in our safehaven of Greenwich Village. We no longer knew how to call out to You. The arc of progress seemed grayscale rather than rainbow. We convinced ourselves You weren't listening, that we just had to wait for humanity to catch up to Your justice and love. And humanity wasn't looking too friendly.
Our Rock and our Redeemer, you sent us allies, who took up the torch we left at the door of the nightclub. To us, some of them seemed like strange bedfellows. However, when we cried that the country was burning they saw that it was not being consumed. They fought when we were tired, and we took strength from them. We were devastated when the US Supreme Court destroyed the Voting Rights Act and when they restricted the ability of employees to claim harassment against their employers, and we got angry at people, but not at You because we lost hope when, despite the illusions of progress, we were not safe in our own neighborhoods. We called on You to guard our comings and our goings, but You seemed to be asleep on the job as our siblings, especially those of color continue to be attacked for walking down the street.
Our Strength and our Salvation, You nevertheless renewed our resolve as we held Pride Parades, Dyke Marches, and Trans Days of Action in our cities. You allowed us to broadcast that it can be fun, invigorating, and complicated to be queer, but that coming out of the closet allows a person to be surrounded with complex and jovial folk. As we lamented that Pride has become a spectacle that straight people come to gawk at and a forum for pandering to gay [sic] constituents, we became grateful that we have the privilege to feel that way.
מודים אנחנו לך, grateful are we for You, in the midst of all of this. We are grateful for how far we have come. We are grateful that there is more work to do because we have been struggling so long we don't know how else to live. We are grateful every time we say the words "I love you," every time we see a rainbow - natural or manmade, every time we pass a single-user gender neutral restroom, every time we recognize what someone wants by a handkerchief, and every time we arrive home safely. We are grateful for the opportunity to remember how grateful we are.
We pray that we may be cognizant of our gratitude constantly. Knowing dark hours will still come, we pray that we may recognize the joy of Pride Month 2013 when we are enveloped. We pray that we remain cognizant of our privilege, and that having more equal rights does not cause us to lose our focus on the marginalized members of society. Appreciating the support we have been offered, we pray for the will to continue to form chosen families and mentorships as the world accepts our presence in more spaces. We pray for the ability to show others that difference is positive. We pray to stay queer.
נברך את מעין חיינו חי העולמים שומעת תפילה
Our Strength and our Salvation, You nevertheless renewed our resolve as we held Pride Parades, Dyke Marches, and Trans Days of Action in our cities. You allowed us to broadcast that it can be fun, invigorating, and complicated to be queer, but that coming out of the closet allows a person to be surrounded with complex and jovial folk. As we lamented that Pride has become a spectacle that straight people come to gawk at and a forum for pandering to gay [sic] constituents, we became grateful that we have the privilege to feel that way.
מודים אנחנו לך, grateful are we for You, in the midst of all of this. We are grateful for how far we have come. We are grateful that there is more work to do because we have been struggling so long we don't know how else to live. We are grateful every time we say the words "I love you," every time we see a rainbow - natural or manmade, every time we pass a single-user gender neutral restroom, every time we recognize what someone wants by a handkerchief, and every time we arrive home safely. We are grateful for the opportunity to remember how grateful we are.
We pray that we may be cognizant of our gratitude constantly. Knowing dark hours will still come, we pray that we may recognize the joy of Pride Month 2013 when we are enveloped. We pray that we remain cognizant of our privilege, and that having more equal rights does not cause us to lose our focus on the marginalized members of society. Appreciating the support we have been offered, we pray for the will to continue to form chosen families and mentorships as the world accepts our presence in more spaces. We pray for the ability to show others that difference is positive. We pray to stay queer.
נברך את מעין חיינו חי העולמים שומעת תפילה
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