I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus

Super cautious, as usual, I arrived at the stepping off point for our "Mormon Allies" Pride contingent at 8:30 this morning. I wanted to make sure any arrivals would immediately find their place. I was literally the only person on the block for another half an hour or so. It was a privilege to greet each and every member of our contingent as they arrived, until we were all there and ready to start marching.

A number of members of our contingent were individuals who are wavering between semi-activity and complete inactivity. One of them confessed to me, "I wasn't sure if I should march as a Mormon. I haven't been very active in the last year."

I said, "You belong with us! We are marching as the church that should be, not necessarily as the church that is."

The majority of our contingent were active members. I realize Pride is a still a stretch for many church members, so I was incredibly grateful for these courageous brothers and sisters, some of whom chose to march as families. Two primary age daughters of one couple who marched with us very politely asked my permission to be one of the carriers of our banner! So this year I was mercifully spared  that duty! I was deeply impressed by the maturity and compassion of even the youngest members of our contingent.

One of the great moments for me during today's march was just before we were getting ready to start. I gathered our Mormon Allies contingent together and we bowed our heads in prayer, thanking Heavenly Father for all our blessings, and asking to be instruments of healing, in the name of Christ, who is our healing.

Our contingent was positioned right in front of a Roman Catholic contingent. We had been fraternizing with them, sharing jokes and stories as the two contingents were gathering. After seeing us bow our heads together and offer a prayer, they approached us as a group and asked, "Can we pray with you?"

"Of course!" we replied. So they joined us, and we all held hands in one great circle. A member of my ward volunteered to be the voice, and offered one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard about the mystery of the love of God. The Spirit was thickly present. When I opened my eyes and looked around the circle I saw expressions of awe and tears in people's eyes. After the Amen, we collectively let out a cheer, and  the march began. I'm not quite sure what happened there, but it was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had.

For those who marched last year, the experience of marching in a contingent of Mormon Allies was no surprise, but still moving. People were excited to see Mormons at Pride! They would cheer: "Mormons! Go Mormons!" It was wonderful seeing the delight in the smiles of those experiencing it for the first time.

It was particularly poignant to me noticing LGBT Mormons watching us along the parade route. They smiled, they waved! I ran up to give hugs at a couple of points. One woman ran up and breathlessly told contingent members the story of her life with the Church, how she had been baptized at 18, been married in the temple. "Mormons! No f---ing way!" She shouted excitedly. "We're trying to make things better," one of our contingent members offered meekly.

Shortly after that encounter, two women approached us. "We're Mormons. Can we march with you?" they asked. "Of course!" we replied, hugging them warmly, and offering them t-shirts and signs.

Last year, at the Pride bandstand, the announcer had been so flabbergasted, she muffed the reading of our group description, and the only intelligible thing she managed to get out was what everybody already knew about us: "Mormon Allies!!!" This year, the announcer managed to read clearly and forcefully so everyone could hear and understand:

We are LGBT Mormons and we are straight Mormon Allies of the LGBT community, here to advocate for our LGBT loved ones, neighbors and fellow citizens.  We are here to visibly demonstrate our love, solidarity and support, to speak out against misunderstanding and exclusion, to join in the struggle for fairness, and to fulfill our obligation to God by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Still, there was confusion. A man approached one of our contingent members and said, "I love God."

Our member replied, "God loves you."

"What?!" he replied in astonishment, "I thought you were protesters!"

"NO!" she exclaimed, "We're here as part of the parade, to show our love for the gay community!"

"Then do you mind if I keep that as a souvenir?" he asked. He pointed to the sign she was carrying.  It said, "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus."

Of course she handed him the sign.

Once again, I'm reminded of why Mormon Allies needed to be at Pride. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has become so strongly identified in the gay community as an anti-gay Church, people are shocked and amazed to see us. They literally can't believe their eyes; can't believe that we're there; can't believe that, if we are there, we're not protesters against LGBT Pride.

I had hoped for a larger contingent this year than last, but we had roughly the same showing as last year, about thirty brave souls. Saints at Pride are still pioneers. Perhaps next year we should march with hand carts. I suggested that, and the kids loved the idea!

Last year was stressful for me. I was eager for our contingent to be "a success" in terms of numbers. There was a cloud of criticism and controversy surrounding Mormons at Pride that has only dissipated a bit this year, and I was afraid the criticism would discourage people from coming. Perhaps it did discourage people, both last year and this year.

Still, this year I felt a great calm. I realized that Christ calls us to the thin spaces, the spaces where it is difficult to be, the spaces where sometimes we have to stand alone. If I had had to stand alone, I would have been grateful for the privilege. I was blessed not to have to stand alone.

What made it most worth it for me was witnessing the participation of a member of our contingent who worked hard to organize last year's event, who at the last minute had gotten horribly sick and been forced to sit it out. She had suffered a kind of anguish both last year and this about marching, because she is not yet out to her family. Marching in Pride is a hell of a way to come out.  She wasn't sure if she could do it.

But today she did not content herself to march. She danced! Her face was transfigured with joy, as she moved gracefully back and forth, in and out toward the crowd, and all around our contingent.

She carried a sign: "I will walk in my integrity" (Psalms 26:11).

Amen.

Marching in Holy Places

This past Sunday, a member of our high council came and spoke in my ward. And if there was any doubt in my mind about the importance of having a good, strong Mormon presence at Gay Pride this coming Sunday (June 30!) before his talk, there was none after.

I wasn't the only one who made the connection. Another member of my ward and I talked about his talk afterwards, and we had both independently come to the same conclusion. This talk was about Gay Pride, and why we need to be there!

I get the objections to Pride. I have on occasion admitted to preferring Church to Pride on a Sunday morning. I'm not always comfortable with everything at Pride. 

Mormons Building Bridges made me feel differently. Once I realized I could bring all of who I am to Pride, the sense of conflict I felt evaporated. And the lessons I learned marching with our Mormon Allies contingent are driving me to participate again this year.

Our high council speaker this past Sunday offered us an interesting interpretation of the "standing in holy places" concept which has become a common theme in Church-correlated materials lately.  (See Psalm 24:3; Matthew 24:15; and D&C 45:32; 87:8; 101:22 for the relevant scriptural texts.) The more conventional LDS interpretation is that the imperative of "standing in holy places" means we should spend lots of time in temples, ward meeting houses, and in prayer-filled homes. Which is a fair enough interpretation! Spending time in these kinds of places fills me with peace, and anchors me in right thinking and love.

But our high council member prodded us a bit by suggesting that maybe the ultimate holy place, the holy place where we always stand is within us. It is the place we make holy by living our lives in such a way that the Spirit of the Lord always dwells in us. He said (according to my journal): "To stand in holy places is to receive the Holy Ghost and follow its promptings."

He went on to talk about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not "a one size fits all" gospel. Each of us faces different challenges and has different needs. My journey as a gay Saint has meant a journey through wildernesses that most straight Saints have no concept of. This is why the Gospel is not complete if we are not actively seeking the Spirit's promptings so that it may "show unto you all things what ye should do" (2 Nephi 32:5). We each need that personally for ourselves.

I particularly loved our high council speaker's example of Samuel the Lamanite. Samuel belonged to a race/group of people the Nephites assumed to be lost and fallen.  He compared Samuel preaching to the Nephites to something like if a prophet from Guatemala showed up in Salt Lake City and started telling all the good, white Saints their failings.

He speculated that the wall Samuel preached from was probably not as high as it is in the classic Arnold Friberg painting. The stones flung at him and the arrows shot at him were probably much more up close and personal, and non-miraculous missing would have been much less likely.

Later that evening, I attended the special broadcast from Salt Lake City, announcing some of the new ways the Church was going to engage in missionary work, with an ever-growing emphasis on full-time missionary - member cooperation. Missionary work, the broadcast emphasized, was about relationship building. Bridge building.

An artfully prepared montage that showed individuals reaching out to friends -- over lunch, at a basketball game, on a school bus, at a children's birthday party -- drove the point home. In my mind, I saw Mormon Building Bridges as part of that montage, marching in Gay Pride.

Like the message delivered to us by our high council speaker, a core message during that Sunday evening broadcast was that there was no one "right way" to do this. That we needed to be attentive to the Spirit, to listen and follow the promptings of the Spirit and go where it told us to go.

It still feels risky to many Latter-day Saints to participate in Pride. After my last post on Pride, some individuals pointed out to me that there had in fact been at least some documented instances of threatened discipline for participating in Pride -- though fortunately none were carried through. There's still a lot of misunderstanding among Latter-day Saints about what participation in Pride means. Some of us feel a bit too close to the stones and arrows that might come hurtling at us... From both sides of the wall!

Yet, this past Sunday I knew, with that miraculous, peaceful, clarity-inducing warmth of the Spirit, that the place I need to be this Sunday is at Gay Pride. I invite you to prayerfully consider if the Spirit might be speaking to you to come join us as well.

If you are here in the Twin Cities, come join us. We have plenty of t-shirts for all participants, emblazoned with our "Mormon Allies" logo, and the slogan, "Where Love Is, There God Is Also."

Contact me via Facebook if you're interested in joining us!