Guest post: Pride and joy
By Mikaela
Going through seminary in the late ‘90s, the dangers of Pride weren’t lost on me. However, at this point, in a religious context the term “pride” was very much only associated with the “pride cycle.” We were often warned of how ‘pride cometh before the fall” and was the reason for the destruction of the entire Nephite nation. Unfortunately, those conversations never included discussions about wealth inequality, class privilege, or the damage caused by racism, patriarchy, or the danger of internalized superiority.
Pride has a different meaning to me now. Last weekend I spent Saturday morning at our local Pride Parade happily running into many close friends of varying relationship make-ups and sexual orientations. As I watched a local band march past raucously playing an upbeat pop song, I was proud to be lovingly welcomed into this space. But the emotion that struck me most was joy. I was overcome by how uninhibitedly joyful the experience was. As congregations from five different Christian churches walked the street with pride flags, I couldn’t help but envy their ability to seamlessly integrate their spirituality, Christlike love and acceptance of people of all walks of life and joyfulness. This was beyond my comprehension. When my brother admitted to “same-sex-attraction” in the fall of 2004, pride certainly wasn’t on my radar. Even before the damaging impacts of the church’s response to Prop 8, rather than simply love him, I kept this a secret as though it was shameful and spent years crying through sacrament meeting over images of a heaven with empty chairs. I was terrified I might have an LGBTQIA+ child and have to choose between wholeheartedly loving and accepting them and their life, or my place in God’s kingdom. Thankfully, I’m not that person anymore. However, as I watched the parade surrounded by joyful people living their authentic lives, I couldn’t help but consider how differently my life has looked.
Perhaps the thing I grieve most about my religious life is the idea that reverence, peace, and “happiness” are somber and silent. I have no idea how to show up joyfully in life. It feels … wrong. I often find myself uncomfortable with overt expressions of happiness. Having received my endowment in the days where we covenanted not to engage in “loud laughter,” I was painfully aware that my very excitable and often loud way of communicating with others was potentially dangerous. Just three summers ago, I sat in a sealing where the officiant requested that all guests remain silent as they left the room and communicate their congratulations to the bride and groom through their eyes—on a day that was supposed to be the happiest, the most joyful of their lives, any joy that day was muted, silenced, almost unwelcome.
This isn’t unique to sealings and sacrament meetings. My church life has been overshadowed with fear, insecurity and silence. Even as a straight, cisgender, middle-class, typically abled woman dripping with privilege, I have struggled with the need to stay silent to belong. But in the last few years I have realized I was failing miserably at this. Because all of the rage and suppression and claustrophobia of silently conforming was coming out sideways in emotional daggers as I screamed at my children and failed to love my husband for not meeting expectations. The system that taught me to self-betray in order to belong was tearing apart the family it was supposed to save.
My fear and insecurity in our failure to adequately “do all we can do” or “love the sinner but hate the sin” was preventing me from loving at all—other people, yes, but also myself. More importantly, the self-loathing that ensued precluded any possibility of feeling joy. I came to the end of my rope. In the absolute depths of despair, I had a come to Jesus moment. What I found there was that if God’s greatest joy is found in wholeheartedly and unquestionably loving a world of humans that spans the entire spectrum of humanity, then perhaps pride and joy aren’t irreconcilable. Perhaps, when we accept ourselves and others and authentically embrace this wild experience, we call life together that is where we find joy. We find people excitedly gathering candy for my shy 13-year-old and politely asking to share stickers. We find friends from the gym stilt-walking in rainbow colors and elderly couples who probably lost friends in the AIDS crisis proudly holding hands. We find people secure enough in their knowledge of God’s love and acceptance to not be threatened by difference and share that love without qualifiers or expectations. We find ourselves fully connected to those around use in a beautiful experience that makes even the most wall flower among us tempted to get up and dance. In that moment I understood: Christ didn’t suffer so we could reduce the misery we experience to a bearable level of survival. Christ suffered so we could feel love without qualifications or limits. And that transcendence, I think that the word for that, is joy.
Not too long ago I watched a video of David Archuleta struggling to sing at a concert to support the LGBTQIA+ community. The song describes his experience of his mother walking out of church with him. As his voice wavered and broke with emotion the crowd begins to cheer, and as he continues to struggle to contain his emotions, they just scream louder. Just thinking about it now, tears stream down my cheeks. It was another moment of people joyfully loving humanity. I sent it to my brother with another apology, once again expressing my regret that when he needed love and support and acceptance the very most, I failed to recognize that all I need to do was simply cheer him on. Because sometimes love needs to be loud, and sometimes joy isn’t found in a sacrament pew, but on a curb at a parade fully supporting Pride in its wildest forms.
Mikaela is a lover of many things, including family, friends, animals, and most especially lively conversation. A professional loud mouth with no filter, she spent too many decades thinking she had no rhythm before finally realizing she needed to dance to the beat of her own heart. When she isn’t spending time with her kids and husband, she is most often found doing “trail” therapy with one or two or 15 of her many friends. Whether on a bike, skis, a paddle board, snowshoes, or her own two feet, you will hear her coming.
Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash
