Pride Month Series: Rejoicing in the Body | By Chelsea Jackson
This Pride Month, Interfaith Philadelphia staff and board members who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community are sharing their experiences at the intersections of faith and sexuality. This blog post is part of a series of stories that will be shared throughout the month of June.
My queer journey, like my faith journey, has been a series of learning, questioning, deconstructing, and relearning. In this post, I could tell you about how LGBTQIA+ folks and queer theology were not discussed in the mainline church I attended as a child, or how ‘converting’ from being gay was met with cheers in the Pentecostal church I found my way into as a lonely teen searching for community; or how I received death threats for participating in a ‘day of silence’ to remember those peers who died by suicide because they were terrified to be gay (and how those threats were prompted by my high school’s security guard and part-time pastor). But instead, what first comes to mind are the teachings around my body and its brokenness.
Many of the Christian traditions I’ve engaged with understand the body and spirit to be separate and unequal. For many, the body is lacking and at risk for temptation/sin, while the spirit, when open to God’s Holy Spirit, can rise above the body and provide liberation from the physical.
As a child (especially a female-presenting one) who was just starting to understand my sense of self, independence, and value, the subtle but consistent message was that I could not trust my body, and that to be most holy was to deny it altogether. I could talk all day about why this is dangerous; why the need to trust one’s body and the information and intuition it provides is important, even life-saving. However, for the purpose of this topic, the biggest impact was that it suppressed my divinely-constructed identity and postponed me exploring my sexuality and gender. If I couldn’t trust my body then why would I listen to it? Relish it? Respect it? Why would I explore how I wanted to dress it? Present it? Move it?
So I stifled those questions, and in turning on my own body and my queerness, I turned on others. Filled with confusing theological messages, I wrestled with the morality of being LGBTQIA+, as if I had any right to judge others and their relationship with God or anyone else. Though I stood for the humanity and dignity of LGBTQIA+ folks, I didn’t know whether it was ‘right’ to be gay. Now, I think back on the years I missed loudly celebrating love in its beautiful and creative forms, and how I could have been a safer person for those navigating their queerness.
A lot has happened since I was 16. I’ve been to an affirming seminary, deconstructed theologies I found harmful, and have pastored a church with love and authenticity as my guide. I also continue to unpack the trauma, guilt, and pain I carried, and for me, that has meant no longer identifying as Christian. Instead, I am pagan. And I am queer. And if I’m honest, I have always been a queer pagan; my body has been telling me that all along.
Paganism can be a scary, misunderstood word, and like all other faith traditions, it is not a monolith. However, for me and many that I practice with, it means tuning into the wisdom of the earth and the intuition of oneself. It means knowing the physical and spiritual are entwined, and that the spiritual is physical and the physical is spiritual.
And so much of how we think about our own bodies impacts how we think about and treat the bodies of others, especially LGBTQIA+ folks whose bodies, what they do with those bodies, and who they love with those bodies have been the topic of public discussion and scrutiny.
So many injustices are justified based on the body. Whether it be race, gender, ability, age, etc. the rationales for marginalization are often based on things people cannot change or deny about themselves. That is why I rejoice in a practice that is rooted in the physical, that honors the earth’s cycles and elements, and recognizes sacred geometry in tree rings and snowflake patterns. I encounter the divine in the body of a bumblebee and the shape it dances in its hive, and in doing so, I better appreciate and celebrate my own body, value, and wisdom, and that of others. In my paganism I cannot don’t deny my body’s existence, its pleasure, its joy. That makes me a better earth keeper and a more ethical, healthier person.
The blending of the spirit and physical in my pagan practice mirrors my own gender blending and witnesses to my own non-binary existence. It allows me to look within and outside myself with greater courage, compassion, and creativity. And for that I am grateful. For that I celebrate throughout Pride Month and always.
Comments
Post a Comment