God is crying
Rainbow Tears
God who hung
Their Rainbow
Weapon
In the Sky
Before Jesus
Tread the Earth
God who Dances
With Abandon
God
who Protects
Joseph Lady’s/Rainbow Cloak
Ruth’s Found Family
Jesus of Two Dads
Baptizing the Egyptian Eunuch
God’s weeping
rainbow tears
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Erasure
You can’t erase Queer
It doesn’t matter
How hard You try
With bullying
Hate
Guns
Bonfires
And bookbans
Shaming cultures
And evil gods
Can’t make People “Don’t say gay”
Evidence of “Roommates”
Hermaphrodites
Two Spirits (don’t appropriate)
Third genders
And Trans*
People
Go back
to the beginning
Of time
And Don’t
Get me started
On the Bible
With the Poly Trinity
David & Jonathan
Joseph’s Rainbow/Lady’s Coat
God’s pronouns
Revealed in flames
Ruth and Naomi
Song of Songs
The Eunuch
The Bible is Queer
You can’t erase
LGBTQIA
It Only
Gets clarified
As time Goes on
So YES
You have
To learn
New terms
#NotSorry
Yes we will
Have
No we will
Not shut up
Personhood
Is on the line
You can’t erase
People
It hasn’t worked
Yet
And it never
Will
I promise you
I will keep
Remembering
And Naming
And Believing
And Listening
And History shows me
I am not alone
QUEER are Beautifully
And Fiercely made
In the image
Of God
No one will
Ever erase
That
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Decolonize!
Because, Lord I’m tired of Gun violence.
That’s my whole prayer today.
Amen.
God I remember–when you came out of the closet–
Flaming!
And Moses, said, What are your Pronouns?
And God says, I am what I am
And Moses says,
Cool, I gotch-you, You’re the God of Pronouns!
And, God says, Good, because I have a feeling,
This will get more complicated!
And then People were doing Violence to one another
So God turned the World On and then Off again
And sent the animals two by two Upon a boat
And hung up God’s weapon, a Bow (that’s an old school gun)
And said, I’m hanging up my weapon, so you will hang up yours
As a sign that Love is Love is Love is Love
And Noah said Cool
And God said, Cool, Because I have a Feeling this might get misconstrued someday
God I remember when Joseph
Draped themselves in a Lady’s Coat
And their bros made fun of them
And tried to feed them to the Lions
And God said, Nope, I claim the Queer One
And then we “retranslated” it as a Rainbow coat, so no one will understand them as Queer
(And you laughed again God, didn’t you? You mysterious and all knowing I Am)
And then Joseph said what you meant for Evil, God meant for Good
No one can take away my God, And God said mmm-mmmmm
And I remember Isaiah, where the prophet saw God,
And clearly identified God as multiples, and referred to God as them
And scholars thought up a new word Trinity–
And we ignored the singular/multiple thing–and God waited, patiently as only God can, for it to dawn upon us.
And then there was when Ruth declared her love and devotion for Naomi
And said where you go I will go, your people will be my people, your God will be my God
And God laughed and said, this will be the foundation text for weddings
This found-family declaration between too women, shh! Don’t tell the Conservatives.
And then came Jesus who instructed us, “Care for the Least of these”
and “Let no one revile you in my name” and “Welcome the Stranger”
And we nodded along like we knew what he meant
and then we disciples whispered among ourselves about exceptions
And God, God you knew
You knew. You knew before we knew
You know, the Bible is so Queer;
It would not even be the Bible, if it did not include rainbows and flames
It would not be Holy without found families
and radical, unconventional love
God only knows, that it is not us who gets to say who belongs to God;
it is but our job to practice welcome and hospitality
Someday, perhaps
we will get the laughter of angels right
And so Coming Out Day Blessings to those who can celebrate
And safe spaces and sanctuary to those who can’t
May those who are Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Ace, Bisexual, Nonbinary, Queer, Androgynous, Demi, Intersex, Questioning, Omnigender, Poly, Pan, and of Two Spirit find the space to be their full self.
And may they scream or yell or ignore or bless God as wish–
Because,
Because
You are God, and you care to endure all those things when your children have suffered so
May we create a world where Coming Out day
that is a true celebration and choice
May all people be celebrated in their fullness we pray–not because of the Bible,
but just Because, We pray this together!
Amen.
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**Grocery prices have gone from–I’m worried To Good Lord**
God,
How many prayers
do you get at the grocery checkout Line?
I remember how many I gave to you
when we scanned the credit cards
that one of them would not bounce
Two kids, then three, in the card
Aware that people around me were thinking judgmental things
Or back when WIC coupons were paper
Ostentious, Obvious
Burdensome and Slow
And I prayed I picked all the right items
So I wouldn’t hold up the people behind me
While the babies fussed
And everyone judged how many cookies
and healthy and whatever expensive foods
I bought that week.
These days my prayers, I admit,
are less desperate,
But I pray a little prayer
because every single week
the grocery bill goes up
And I feel the panic in my gut
the awareness of days past (PTSD, yes?)
when I would gather up the kids
cereal and yogurt and milk
Putting every drop back when they finished
Loathe to waste a drop,
because we could not afford it
Jesus
You and the Widow know
that you can’t budget your way out of poverty
Only money can help
God, I’m saying a prayer
For all of us who are stressed
Or holding our breath
Or trying not to cry in the checkout line
“Feed my Sheep” You said
“Feed my Sheep” is our prayer in the checkout line.
Feed us, we pray.
Amen.
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Sometimes I wonder
If Jesus ground his teeth
Did you wake up in the middle of the night
Feeling like you were about to fall?
From some inexplicable nightmare?
When you got through a harrowing encounter
with the officially officials—you know the ones that had been in the building
Did you come home with a headache?
Did you practice breathing techniques, and peaceable responses, and politeness and smiles
like most of the women, disabled people and marginalized around you…
All of us knowing—this is how we make it
Did you preach the Good News as a survival technique
Not as a toxic positivity to push on people
But the Bare Bones to give those hungry for scraps of answers of
“Why am I Here? And “Does this even Matter?” And “How Do I face tomorrow?”
And did you sit and look at the stars—Christ—and evaluate your day, and try to comfort yourself:
With the little things that went right; and the good things you saw, and the big picture you were working towards.
Did you ache with the work of it all Jesus? And roll your jaw, and take a deep breath to relax your shoulders, before you faced another fully human day?
Thank you for being human with us Jesus.
Amen.
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God,
I long for justice
I ache for it so much
that when I go to bed at night
I am convinced that it whispers to me
In a language too complicated for human ears.
And when I wake up and hear
of courts
and punishments
and other things
My soul sits confused
unable to responds to these paltry efforts.
I want justice that feeds the hungry,
frees the prisoner
and yes breaks the teeth of my enemy–but
in such a way that I am too busy partying to notice.
Jesus, did every meal with you taste like justice
or hope
comfort and freedom?
Or was it enough to just sit with you?
Holy Spirit, I find that this longing for justice is really something.
It is not the gift I asked for, and yet it was given to me–unasked
and so here I am
Not waiting for justice, Because we all know, justice does not allow one to wait.
But still,
Walking,
Running,
Resting
towards justice, because I do not know any other way to be.
And that’s why I talk, yell and cry to you God.
It’s this justice hole in my soul.
You poke it and prod it with me, like the great physician you are.
And say, where does it hurt?
And confirm.
Yes.
Yes, We should work on that.
Here we go again God.
Amen.
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God, can we talk?
You and I know
that
Abortion is healthcare
America doesn’t believe in healthcare
We ignore it
stop it,
charge ludicrous amounts for it
We create “Companies” and give them authority to have
“feelings” about it
“We feel like you don’t need that medication”
Ha, right
And, then, finally make it illegal
America doesn’t do healthcare
It’s that simple
and that hard
So I guess we need to start at the very beginning
What is healthcare God?
Because I don’t think we’ve even started, yet
Help us
Care
About
Health
Please.
Or to Care
Help us.
Selah
Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Thank God for our Nonbinary* siblings!
The both/and
The not really,
the sort of
The people of twilights
sunrises and sunsets
The today I do this, and tomorrow I’ll do that.
The ones who escape easy definition,
and yet are so definitely
xe
ze
sie
co
them.
Here’s to those who help us to understand aspects of God,
That we never understood before,
male and female Both in the image of God.
Mother and Father God.
God of many breasts, God almighty, God of many mounds.
Here is to the enbys, whose sense of fashion is superior,
and yet we still don’t know how to market to them
(silly commercial straight/cis, whatever people)
Here is the the nonbinary people,
beautiful, perfect, made in God’s image.
God bless you.
Thank you.
I hope you are affirmed and blessed,
today and everyday.
Amen.
*(If you need to research to start understanding being nonbinary, please start researching being nonbinary and use queer and nonbinary resources so here is a place to start)
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Any & All errors on this prayer are my own and I take full responsibility for them as an ally who is still learning.
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katyandtheword 
