lgbtqia – 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”

Blessed Coming Out!

On National Coming Out Day
Stay Safe
Find Sanctuary Spaces
Find places to be you
Find Belovedness
Find Cozyness
Corners
Embrace Mystery
Its ok if it doesn’t all make Sense
Be Gay/Queer And Do Crime
Be a Riot
You are Fierce and Awesomely Made

And Forgive all of us who don’t show us
In the ways you need us to

In the Name of the
God who show Themselves
in a Flaming Bush
To an Enslaved man with a Speech Impediment
to Liberate People
(Who you do NOT have to Believe in)

I Hope you are Affirmed and Celebrated
Be
Beloved

Have you considered becoming a part of the NEXT church community?

You may not know this about me, but I am currently working at a federated American Baptist and United Church of Christ Church as a Presbyterian USA Pastor. I love living into this interdenominational reality. Trying to figure out what we have in common of One Baptism, One Table, One Christ. I find it beautiful. I think one of the best places that prepared me for this ministry is NEXT Church

It is probably not a coincidence that I became a board member about the same time I started my ministry at Emmanuel Friedens–the Holy Spirit knows what she is doing.

Anyway I am about to talk about some of the movement of NEXT church and why I think you should come, but we also offer free roundtables https://nextchurch.net/roundtable-conversations/, coaching, a Preaching Cohorts–the one for POC who are in majority white congregations called “Still We Preach” is especially unique and worth checking out https://nextchurch.net/preaching-for-change/cohorts/–and more https://nextchurch.net.

NEXT Church is one of those spaces that continues to transition as time goes on. I have been attending NEXT for about 13 years. It is a place that continues to wrestle with the questions of what it means to be the church today—but uniquely it does this with hope and joy and for the church at all levels. The mantra NEXT church is trying to live into is that it is better together, therefore anyone who is involved at NEXT church at any level is NEXT church. We are NEXT church. It is more of a movement than an institution.

It certainly felt that way when at NEXT church that the ramification of the Gay marriage amendment passing broke. I’ll never forget that day—Diana Butler Bass was speaking. I was sitting up in the balcony, and we all got text alerts about it. No one was able to hear a word about what she was saying, because the news was so exciting. I was livetweeting the conference and asked if someone was going to interrupt her and announce the news. NEXT church is kind of laid-back, so it seemed hard for anyone in the hall to break in. Finally, I realized I was in a good position. I raised my hand and said “Excuse me Diana, I hate to interrupt, but we just got the news that gay marriage was ratified for our denomination can marry, and we are all distracted by the good news, everyone can marry.” Diana said, “Congratulations, this Episcopalian, welcomes you.” Note this delightful interdenominational interaction! And the entire hall erupted in applause. More Light and Covenant Network had planned a reception for that that evening and what had initially meant to be a small gathering practically the entire conference came out to celebrate, many of them ordering “the Presbyterian” which the bartenders no doubt quickly learned how to make.

NEXT church is not place for clergy to gather at the mountaintop and go just in hope. It is trying to meet all of the congregation as we figure out this thing of if the church is not existing as it is now, what then will it be? That is what the Already Not Yet national gathering of Next is coming together to contemplate—not to provide all of the answers, but to give time and space to be the church together, both now and for the future. The pathways are for all people doing all the work that is the church, because this is who we are.

If you have had a conversation with me about the greater church you have probably heard me say “I’m excited about where the church is going.’ It seems like a strange thing to say at this time, but the church was and is always meant to be a movement for the marginal, it was never meant to be for the rich and powerful. Right now people don’t go to the small town church for prestige or honor. The people who come are attracted by community and through a hunger for something more. We are the church together, God is planting the seeds so that we can be enough of a movement to do God’s work in the world. The buildings and pews are just dressing, the people are the heart of God’s love.

That something more is what is being addressed by the current Pathways for Next Church. There is the self explanatory Community Organizing, One about the Goals of your ministry called: More Than Good Intentions, there is the much in demand Communal Trauma track, there is the one I think I’m going to land on Art as Trauma (my mom and I had a long discussion that she forgot that writing was art), and NEXT church’s pathway about measuring progress other than through membership and money (or butts and bucks) called Cultivated Ministry. I hope you consider joining me in November 11-14th in Grand Rapids, MI. The cost is $499 and includes some meals. If you do not have a Continuing Ed budget, it is reduced to $299. There is a hotel deal as well and of course if you convince a friend to come, you can share a room. If you do not have young children like me, perhaps you can drive out and reduce costs more. The information is here https://nextchurch.net/national-gathering/2025-grand-rapids-mi/

Thanks
Katy Stenta

Aka “KatyandtheWord” NEXT Church Board member

Screw This

Screw this
Screw this Reality
Screw this Bill
Screw Money
Screw Whiteness
Screw Racism

Screw Millionaires
Special Interests
Backroom Bills
And the ones we can see too

Screw working together with Those who hate the weak
While the hungry cry out
the people are being kidnapped
Your grandparents don’t know how they are going to get medical care
Disabilities, Queerness, and our Black and Brown siblings are hated
with the full force of the law

Screw that

Screw our children being afraid of
Everything
Screw the hard questions about the world they are coming into
Screw the rolling back of Environmental justice

Screw redefining words so that everything becomes “too political”

Screw Praying when we
should be Arguing
Walking
Fighting
Voting
And Protecting Each Other

And Screw this Economy that doesn’t
Give us time to breathe
Much less Care

Screw Everything
And Screw Up my face
With the tears
That run down It
As I don’t
Have the right Words
Or
Actions
Or Things to Do
And all I have
Is the Gut reaction
Of Screw Everything
And I empty Myself
Full on Confessional to
God

Saying Screw it

And I figure
God knows
And is probably
saying the same thing
With me

Screw Injustice
And Hopelessness
And “Good Enough”
This isn’t gonna Cut it
Anymore

Screw it
Until we Screw Together
Something else
I don’t even know What
But somehow
Screw it
Is a prayer

Holy Spirit Come
Help us to say
Screw it
To all we need to let go of
Then help us to
Unscrew all the Loose Screws

(And then
Maybe
Find us the tools we need
To start the work again)

But right now
Screw it

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

God of Chosen Names

God of Chosen Names
Jesus
Yesu
El Shaddai
God of Many Breasts;
Y/Know the God of Many Mountains-Able to be Worshiped anywhere
Otherwise translated as Almighty
Abundant God
Merciful God
Purveyor of Peace
Everlasting Guardian
King of Kings
Ruler of All
Kin-dom Creator

God of Chosen Fam
Sibling Maker
Creator of Heirs
The One who makes us all Heirs
of Love

Creator of Peace
the one who faces
Trauma
Hard Family Dynamics
Gossip
Rocky Friendships
And walks with people
With dirt between your toes
and washes our feet
dries our tears
Sits with us

In silence
Waits
And calls us
By our Chosen name

God of Compassion
Empathy
God of the in-between
God of Grays
Twilights
Sunrises
Sunsets
Dragonflies
Amphibians
Marsupials
Fungi
Duck-Billed Platypi

God of the Blackholes
Stardust
God the quarks and leptons
You are inst and amongst the rainbows
Encouraging personification of self
Co-creation, Naming
You celebrate our being
the Imago Dei
and the DEI
Diversity
Equity
and Inclusion

You are proud of all of your children
You oo and ahh and shout with joy
Proclaiming the fullness of
your Trans*
Queer
Lesbian
Gay
Ace
Nonbinary
Intersex
and Pansexual Children

You send angels
before them
(canonically nonbinary
themselves)
Proclaiming
That they are
Fierce
And Wonderfully Made
Saying
Make way
for them
For they
are Children of God

May the world
Have ears to Hear
And Hearts to Understand
The beauty of your Creation
Amen
Amen!

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

God of all things

You are the God of all people
Too many to mention
When I try to list all the kinds of people you are God of
I get caught up
In who and what you are the God of
And yet, it helps,
I find
To start to name
How you are God
to people who are struggling right now
And so I lift your name in praise today

You of the God of Weather Predictors
The God who keeps humanity humble because we cannot
even tell you if it will rain tomorrow–but you help us to develop
the science for national disasters, and to be overprepared–and then to complain when the disasters never hit as hard as predicted. You paint the sky in rainbows, reminding us that you love us, and never want us to be hurt by disasters. You remind us that you are the God of love and peace–and remind us too to hang our weapons us as well.

You are the God of Immigrants
Calling your people to get up and journey, so many times
And to never forget that we are all immigrants at some point in our lives: emotional, spiritual, mental, physical, and so we are are never to mistreat immigrants. If only, God, if only we would remember your words and treat immigrants with love and respect, because you make crystal that you are the God of immigrants. The God of those displaced: by violence, by climate change and those who simply had to leave because they felt it in their hearts. Whatever the reason, you know that immigration is an important part of human existence.

You God of tireless Data recorders. You call yourself the Keeper, the God who keeps track, the Great Mathematician. You know every hair on our head, every grain of sand, every star in the sky–so God you know
Thank God, you know….
The unseen and unknown Piles of Paperwork
The God of Government workers who do mysterious things that we don’t even know–you are the God of tax collectors–every single person I know who has had to work with the IRS is relieved how nice they are. You are also, the blessed God of grant filers and grant fulfillers. The God who knows that it takes a special kind of spirit to keep the lights on in any kind of place that serves.

You are the God of the arts, the God that knows that we need creativity, theater, museums, reading. The God who understands that we are herd animals who need places to gather and just be. A God who wants us to just wonder at life. You give us the power to name all things, so that we too can pursue the arts and be creative as we find all ways to “name” and create new ways to understand the world. You are the God of creativity.

The God of Education and those who need to be Educated
The God of Teachers who somehow make it to the end of the year–and all the children, teenagers and adults who are juggling everything who make it too. You are up with the janitors and bus drivers in the morning, and hold the hands of those studying and grading into the night. You accompany us in Psalms, reminding us that you are with us from the wee hours to the earliest dawn of the days.

You are the God of the disabled, For you understand what it means to be fully human, but different. To come into resurrection scarred and not whole. The Resurrected Jesus came with Holes in his arms and his side–because all of us who live long enough will not be fully abled anymore. It is a part of being human, and that does not stop God from being our God. God does not bless those who are able bodied. God loves us exactly as we are.
God loves all of us, the young, the elderly, the healthy, the frail
The doctors, the nurses, the caretaking, the hospice workers, the sick.
You are the God of all. God help us to understand that we are not valued by what we do, or how much work we produce, but instead you walk with those on the journey of care–breathing in and out as they make whatever journey they make in these handcrafted, beautiful and imperfect human bodies of ours.

God, I could go on and on about who you are the God of…

You are the God of the Veterans, who deserve love and care every step of their live, not just when they have served their country: for you have said “Feed my Sheep.”

You are the God of the LGBTQIA community, for you have said “Love one another” and there is no asterisk on that command, and you give us to one another as family, and teach us to love and care for each other from the baptizing of the Ethiopian Eunuch to the understanding that in Jesus Christ “There is no male nor female, no Greek nor Hebrew no slave nor free.”

God you are the God of all of those who are being
pushed away
forgotten
stifled
ignored

And yet

That does not stop the reality
You see all people
value them
Call them into being
Value the fullness of who they are
You love them
Because of who they are

God of all people
Help us to remember that
When others try to
Grind our identities into nothing

Remind us
of our belatedness in God
we pray
Amen.

Celebrating Baptism

God
somedays
Preaching the Word
of God

Looks
like a Party
at the Met Gala

Where the
Queer
Black Excellence
is on display

And whisper
Screams

to Peter
the Rock
the Founder
of the Church

We are
here

We have always
Been
Here

Like
Chariot
Riding

Entrusted
Officials
Of the
Queen

Therefore

The question
almost does
Not need to be
Asked

What
is to
prevent
Us?

From
Being
A part of the
Kin(g)dom
Of God

Ha!

Article about Black Dandy-ism and the exhibits in the museum and how the fashion reflects history https://substack.com/home/post/p-162963513

May be an image of 2 people, overcoat and suit

Pics from Facebook AFROPUNK

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

Throw Jesus Off the Cliff

Some days
God
I feel like
we are throwing
Jesus
off a cliff

I feel like
we hear the words of prophecy
that say
Make things easier
help those in need

It is amongst the cacophony
of “Masculinity” “Capitalism”
and “Christian Nationalism”

Do you hear it under the cries for
Nazareth First?

Jesus says: I am here for the immigrant widow,
the strangers,
the broken,
the disabled,
the weird,
the LGBTQIA,
and the strange

I feel like
when we hear the echo
of Jesus’s voice
Calling us
to do the hard work
of the gospel

that when Jesus walks with us
and says
you are correct
Christianity
is not
about success

We have to sit down
and say
what is life about then

and many people
throw Christianity
leadership
Jesus
or whatever out

Why do we do this worship
thing
If it isn’t about that anyway?

Sometimes I want to put out posters
Come to church
We do brokenness
really well

Come to worship
We are bad at community

Join us Sunday
We have had to practice
for 2,000 years and are
still getting power dynamics
wrong

Put your faith not in
princes
power
and principalities

But the dandelion
still bloomed
A perfect
Weed
spreading
Wishies
for children
to blow
in the yard

I treasure God
calling me
a dandelion
full of
seeds
and
Wishes

Image: A child, in a red coat, you happily cannot tell their gender, drawing butterfly and heart) out of a giant dandelion (like making a wish). Image sourced from https://img.freepik.com/premium-photo/child-blowing-dandelion-with-heart-star-sketch_587981-17165.jpg

Practice focusing on God
practice community
practice honesty
exercise everyday–not
because you will win any races
But because walking together
is the journey

And some days
I too want to throw Jesus off the cliff
Because it’s clear
I still don’t get it

And then Jesus floats back
and hugs me
Because
it never was about
perfection
in the first place

But the moments of
beauty
community
laughter
still count

Thank God
for that

Amen

Feel free to use/share Adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta aka KatyandtheWord

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.