human rights – katyandtheword

Trans Day of Remembrance

Content warning: Trans* Day of Remembrance: Mentions Abuse, Death, Murder, Abuse, Suicide

God
You know that
when your very
existence
is resistance

Then remembrance
is more
than a story

It is a celebration
that Life
is complication

And beautiful
and every time
We remember

Our Trans* siblings
We co-create
A world

Where mourning
and lament
are not it

We re-member
re-connect
re-present
reality

Knowing that
one way
one being
even one name
is not enough

Complicated
mysterious
God-
THE God of Pronouns
The Almighty
Multiplicitious* God

It is You who blesses us
calls us by our chosen name
Blesses our found families
understands the mysterious, complicated way
hurt, imperfections, love all mix up into life

Perhaps more than anyone else

Help us as we do the hard work
of mourning those who have been lost to this world
through the tragedy of violence

Trans* individuals who have been killed by
intimate partners
family
strangers
or if they lose their life yet another way and died by suicide,
We hurt still from all the abuse and death
that is ongoing

Protect especially our Queer
Siblings of Color

We Celebrate their lives
as a testament and Embodiment
Of the Diversity in the World
Knowing, that their living into themselves
Still counted and was important
even when it felt incomplete

Protect especially our Queer
Siblings of Color
Who are particularly vulnerable

Put a shield across them
We demand your care for them

Melt the hearts of hate
For all who do harm
Physical
Political
Emotional

And may we resist forever
Any injustice in the world
Fighting for a Place

Where all are
Accepted
Fed
Safe
Celebrated
Justified
Recognize
and Known

To be
Fiercely and Wondrously made
In the Image of our Multiplicitous God
Amen

*This is a new word, as of today, pronounce it with confidence

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta aka “KatyandtheWord”

Nebulous Prayers

And this morning God
All I can think about
is the passage

What forbids me from being baptized Philip?
asks the Ethiopian Eunuch
and I’m sure
Philip thinks
of all of the ramifications
that this person
is of nebulous rank
nebulous gender*
nebulous status
from another country

what authority does Philip have?
But Philip was sent by an angel
to say yes

And I feel like Philip
running alongside chariots
not knowing
what authority
we have

We are in a nebulous
time

knowing things are in flux
being asked hard questions

and I hope
we say
yes
as often
as we can

Because God knows
God is not preventing us
from loving
and including
each other

God’s yes
is strong
even when
we don’t know

And it’s ok
not to know

I don’t know God
that’s my prayer
I just don’t know
Amen

Feel Free to share/adapt/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

*Though to be clear that individual, the Ethiopian Eunuch, may have known exactly who they were and what their gender status was, the LBTQIA breadth and depth is beautiful in all of it’s multiplicities

Childhood, a Prayer

God there are so many
worries I have in
the world

But then I remember
that Ozma**
was restored
to rule
and got
her happy ending
and became a girl***
without any fuss at all

And that stories of
Defying Gravity
for
Different
Divergent
Witches
In not Pink Skins
are inspiring
Songs everywhere

and that Glinda too
realized
she needed a castle
with women

I remember that
Banksy is creating
and recreating
for Peace

I read all the
Science Fiction
and Fantasy
about acceptance

I remember
that people are
upset about
Woke
things
Because they
sell so well

And I take a deep breath
And sing
the Magnificat
Again

With Mary
As
We Advent
(Wait, Long, etc.)
again
for Jesus

*Footnote: Link above Mary Poppins Spoonful of sugar was inspired by the oral Polio vaccine which was given with a square of sugar to help the medicine go down. I am very worried about the discrediting of vaccines in this day of age. I am also worried because I have a child with autism, and although vaccines do not cause autism, time and time again people have insisted they basically would rather risk death then have a child with autism. It is a sobering thought.

**Footnote: Read Ozma of Oz, it is one of the first happy endings for LGBTQIA. Also L. Frank Baum wrote many, many women based upon his feminist mother-in-law, some of them funny, some of them strong, all of them amazing. There is a lot of variation in Oz, because it is fantasy. It is amazing, per usual. Wicked also has LGBTQIA acceptance obliquely within it, however L. Frank Baum’s stories are wide open for interpretation as most fantastic stories are.

***Footnote: “became a girl” is not quite right but it’s fantasy and this is poetry I don’t want to ruin for you…so excuse my clumsy wording for the gist of the mystery of the book that you will now have to read.

God see to Your humans

Get Behind me Satan…for the days when I can’t even..

I can’t even
When the death-dealers
call themselves
“pro-lifers”

I can’t even
When science
Bible verses
and news
is cherry picked

I can’t even
when cultural norms
are made into accusations
and real offenses
are buried

I can’t even
when children
LGBTQIA individuals
Let us be 100 percent clear
Who are
made in the image of God
can’t exist
as their authentic selves

I can’t even
when
food for kids
is voted down
and laws to protect
their work structures
are stripped away
but parents cry about
their parental rights

I can’t even
when religion
and politics
mix
into a noxious
perfume of power
intoxicating
all the wrong people

I can’t even
when wars rage on
healthcare
wages
and equity is neglected
for “Look a distraction” issues
And more is poured into the military

When people plug their ears
And refuse to hear
much less name
or work on
the real issues *

I
can
not
even

*I haven’t even had time to open the Pandora’s box of the environment, climate change and how we need to be working on alllll of that…

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”

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Supreme Justice? A Prayer

God,

You and I

know that I am uncomfortable

pledging allegiance to a flag–

because that flag’s justice

is not your justice.

Justice that flows like waters

is not promised in the flag

Supreme Justice–where mainly white men

reign like kings of the day;

welp God, I remember

all your warnings about kings,

and that you sent

ahem,

let’s say a different kind of judges

heroes who rebalanced the books

against the powers that be–

God we are the one

who are to empower the judges

against the Supreme Justices

Restoring Personhood, Privacy, Sexuality, Climate, Native Rights

Obliterating our hunger for Death Cults.

God, I do not want liberty and justice for all

because those human ideals cannot come close to

justice flowing down like water,

and righteousness like an everflowing stream

refresh our thirst for that which is good,

remind us to listen to those in the margins,

who still remember what justice tastes like.

Because surely it tastes like communion,

and the Kin(g)dom

and Love;

If only we can remember,

Whet our appetite for justice, I pray.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Empty Handed Prayer

Ok God,

You know that sometimes,

Ok let’s be honest,

All too often,

My hands are outstretched!

Not because I’m throwing my hands up in praise

but rather

because they feel WAY too empty.

And I can’t find a way to help–

So I pray.

So here I am Sweet Jesus,

In the middle of a veritable plague,

on the edge of what could be World War 3,

while dictators invade innocent nations,

while families are treatened to be ripped apart

for supporting and loving and affirming

your God imaged trans and lesbian and gay and nonbinary children

and black and brown people are still killed without warrant or warrants

and books are being banned and burned

and gun violence is up everywhere

and home prices are through the roof–

Is this how it felt Jesus, when you were born

in the middle of occupied Jerusalem

Is this how the disciples felt

when they asked you the same questions

over and over (and over) again.

Did you have compassion for them,

because you knew their questions were a form of prayer?

God why is this happening?

How do we stop it?

Why do we fall into these patterns of evil again and again.

Hosanna! Save us! Help us!

God, as we enter this lonely time time of Lent,

Help me to walk with you, I pray.

because, God knows,

You know,

I at least don’t want to walk it alone.

And so here I am,

with an empty handed prayer,

knowing that I’m asking for something to do

and what you ask will not be easy…

but I choose to pray anyway,

Because I don’t want to be empty handed anymore!

Lord hear my prayer,

Amen.

Feel free to share/adapt/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

With thanks to @Thomaslhorrocks for the inspirational tweet

#Relentless #oppress #Slatespeak

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

the most basic and essential of prayers for all peoples

O how it hurts me that Christianity is used for a tool of oppression. In the grand pantheon of ways to be Christian, I figure you and God are working it out.

Unless you are using the Gospel to preach hate or oppress someone, because that right there people, is heresy. Heresy is using the Gospel for the opposite of its purpose.

Hate instead of love and Oppression instead of freedom are pretty much it.

But it hurts, because I benefit from oppression. I’m white and I have to deal with my whiteness. I’m cis-hetereo and I have to deal everyday with the fact that my so-called normalcy gives me an advantage.

And Jesus isn’t about the normal people. The more we normalize Christianity, the more we make it about power. In a slatespeak discussion a couple of weeks ago, my colleagues mused that Imperialism is when we are mistakenly convinced that God only talks to those in power.

Heresy, again I cry heresy.

I cry heresy to the core of my soul, but Christianity has been entrenched and tied to Power forever. Only Christ can save it. Only Christ can save us.

Because, we are the nation “trumpeting our righteousness”, even as we sin. We only fast “to quarrel and fight”

So this is the FAST that I choose

to loose the bonds of injustice–against the Trans, Muslim, Autistic, Lesbian & Gay, Deaf, Jewish, Sikh, Genderqueer, Blind, People of Color, Mentally Ill, Asexual, the poor and the children.

To undo the thongs of the yoke of the overworked, the under appreciated, the homeless, the victims of violence, the helpless, the depressed, the lonesome

To Let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke.

The way to do this is to share my bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into my own house and cover the naked.

water, food, shelter, medical care, clothing, treating each other as human beings

the most basic and essential of prayers for all peoples

To somehow empower without enabling, to be gracious in an unjust world and to magnify those voices that society tries to erase, ignore or unnamed.

For then the light shall break forth like the daw, and healing shall spring up quickly.

Heal us, break us our from our own heresies, entrench us instead in love.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+58