An Honest Prayer After Reading the "Clobber Passages"

GMT

Gracious God, thank you for giving our ancestors the foresight to write down their misconceptions.

Forgive them for trading their women as a bartering tactic to protect valued men.

Thank you for their attention to public health—help me to read with generosity the authenticity of that concern rather than the perennial and toxic fear of same gender love.

Be with me, Lord, as I pray my way through these texts. Help me to perceive you, as you’ve always gone before and moved amidst the mess.

May my imagination expand to include characters who have been left off the page. Identities that have been razed and standardized to fit in palatable boxes. And women who have been rewarded for good behavior.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But, in fact, they often do.

Abba, there is a reason that Lot’s sons-in-law thought he was “jesting.”

There is a human instinct to find humor and disbelief in the gravely serious.

So help me be like Sarah.

Let me giggle my way through this scripture.

Because I’ll need to—what with all the daughters raping their dad’s and all. And the God-given rules about who can see who nakey.

And I have to know—did you really say that bleeding women were unclean? You’ve changed your course a trillion times, but that starting point is still a shock. Why, God? If that was you, it killed so many of your daughters. If someone said it for you, it killed them all the same.

Abomination.

Perversion.

Defiled.

Her sickness.

Vomiting land.

Divine punishment.

These authors weren’t messing around.

Clearly the people were.

Take a breath (not a virgin) and keep reading, little one.

Until chapter 19 of the whopper. When you mention guilt as a punishment for hate. And here I have some questions. Because guilt and shame have ensnared my queer siblings seemingly since the dawn of time. There’s been so much hate. From within and those claiming to be without. God, when will you set these captive lovers free? Send that guilt somewhere else where it can come out once and for all.

Maybe send that shit to Monsanto because apparently mixing seeds is a sin and You are the Lord our God.

Were these authors writing with fear, convicted that their peers were evil? Could they have used a little self-love? Or a day of being naughty with rounded off hair on their temples?

Nah, that one’s just a scribe in the closet sneaking some personal preferences into the text.

I don’t mean to be irreverent, God. And pick the pieces of faithfulness that fit into my world. Yet, I also kind of do. Because I know you can take it. You’ve taken my heart, and I intend to stay, loving you and pussy too.

“I’ll have to carve out a place for myself. Because your good old boys in this book didn’t do such a good job at that.”

God, I pray for reconciliation. I’m reading threats that you will cut individuals off from their people for wrongdoing. And without doing wrong, queer people are partitioned all the time. Be with our mothers. Our judgey uncles. Our cousin who will not let us be. Soften their hearts. Show them your own. For in it, I am confident they will see the possibility to re-enter our lives. Or at least someone else’s if the strain is irreparable. Protect my siblings, God. Maintain their boundaries and heal their wounds. Because, all too often, cruelty has followed them for many days of their lives.

Cosmic Kween, our bodies have been degraded long enough.

Our minds are not debased.

Our lips are clean. At least for now

because if something is in our nature it is not unnatural.

War is a natural outcome of undisputed and authoritative power given to male-identifying leaders just as women fucking is a natural outcome to proximity. That’s right: send me to school and I’ll start using metaphorical ratios, fatherfuckers.

I’m angry. And using too many binaries. And pitting gender identities against one another. Which is not the solution. But I don’t have one of those, so I’m looking to you, God.

I don’t need to inherit your kingdom. I just want to roll up in a bow tie and join the party, Jesus.

You broke your body for us.

Please stop letting others try to break ours.

In your holy name I pray,

Amen.