Praying for Love
Written by Elizabeth - California, USA
On my desk sit a lesbian flag and a rosary; items often depicted in opposition, one begging for punishment, one for understanding. The flag is from my first pride parade, and the rosary was a gift from my godfather - an Irish immigrant, priest, and family friend of 50 years. My rosary became one of the grounding pieces of my faith when I was fifteen, and my older sister was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
I watched from afar as she suffered through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and I remember feeling so powerless as my mom flew from California to New York to take care of her. For the first time, I began praying the rosary every Sunday. I now pray the rosary to combat feelings of helplessness. When I woke up on Election Day, the first thing I did was reach for the beads. As I watched the votes come in, I prayed the rosary back and forth with one of my friends with hope and love for safety and perseverance.
When I was a child my family attended mass every Sunday. My godfather would invite the children to stand around the altar with him. I would race up to the altar and stand right next to him. I have never forgotten how loved and proud I felt standing by his side.
The summer after my freshman year, I volunteered at my church’s Video Ministry. One morning, I got permission to come down from the choir loft for the homily and sat in the back row as my godfather announced a Pride Month blessing. He invited the queer people in attendance to come up for a blessing, and as I watched people decades older than I process up to the altar, and the Church reach out their hands over them in prayer, I found myself crying in that back pew.
Last June, my godfather once again announced the Pride blessing; I wasn’t out to my church community, my godfather, or my grandmother. I exchanged a look with my mom, mouthing “I want to go”. She nodded, and I gripped her hand hard, my body shaking. She stood behind me on the altar, her arms around my waist. As I walked back to my seat, an older man walking to communion gave me a smile and a thumbs up. The altar has stayed a central axis of my faith, even as I change around it.
Finally, my faith has given me the gift of music; church was the place I first learned to sing. I remember being three years old, standing up on the pew to see the altar, belting my heart out alongside my family to “Go Tell it On the Mountain”. I’d flip open the hymn book to share it with my sisters, hearing my godfathers Irish inflection echoing across the church. When I learned how to sing, I learned how to pray.
I am now a songwriter at Idyllwild Arts Academy, and will attend the NYU Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music in the Fall. I write music about my queerness, my beliefs, and the love I feel for others. Every time I sing, I pray: for my community as a queer person, for the poor and ignored, and for those who are denied love by their communities. I have always believed that love is the pinnacle of spirituality. For centuries, queer people have died for love; just as Jesus did. In the end, love unites us; and I pray that we can learn to love each other the way God intended us to do.
