When Mother God
created the heavens and the earth,
including all of humanity,
tending to the most minute details,
and ensuring a rich tapestry
of variance and difference,
she/they looked at all of it,
all of us,
and said that everything
was “very good.”
Go forth with this knowledge
of universal goodness,
in the creative power
of the Holy Spirit,
and love courageously.
Amen.
My Lover is my Lord,
in him, I do not want.
He lies with me on clean linens
and wraps me in his sinewy arms.
He enlivens my body and soul
and leads me on pleasurable paths
toward mutual ecstasy.
With him I journey through
the soft fleshy curves,
hard muscled edges,
and vulnerable tissues
of our bodies.
In him, I fear no harm,
for his rod
and my staff
are in the hands
of excellent communicators.
He prepares a warm cuddle for me
after the stresses and joys
of the daily grind;
he anoints my head with kisses
and my heart overflows.
Goodness and mercy
flow from our union
into all of the days
and the ways
of our lives.
I shall dwell in the embodied home
of my Lord – my Husband –
until death do us part
and we reunite
in eternal embrace.
Basebuilding:
Foundations built on faith, conviction, and justice.
Collaboration with community, church,
ancestors, prophets,
and future generations.
Unique in poetic and prophetic imagination
speaking and doing
an alternative narrative and
story into being.
Renouncing and denouncing
the narrative and
story of domination and supremacy
through a communal vision,
achievable and concrete,
grassroots grown,
in our ecclesial spaces
and beyond
for the queering and decolonizing
and expanding
and including
of Beloved Community.
Basebuilding:
Intentional connections and relationships,
with imagination,
as power
and wholistic transformation
for the well-being
of all people and creation.
I rejoice in You, my Provider;
my heart beats with praise.
I raise my palms and lift my eyes
toward Your glory and wholeness,
in thankful exultation
of Your steadfast love
and faithful word.
At a young age, You called me;
I heard and followed.
But the Church and the world
conspired to silence Your voice
and extinguish my call
by moralizing away my belovedness
as Your child, oh God,
as a condemned and unworthy queer.
But, amidst these trials of human
malevolence and lies,
You journeyed with me,
never leaving nor forsaking,
waiting for a receptive heart
to remind me of my call –
not despite of my sexuality,
but because of it –
the experiences of expansive and just-filled love.
And now,
through my approval for Ordination
as a Deacon in the UMC,
You have brought Your Purpose to further fruition in me,
proving that Your radically inclusive love endures,
and expands,
forever.
Where You lead, oh Lord, I follow.
Amen.
Deacon Grant 