I’m going to be real honest: I can’t for the life of me understand how Memorial Day gets a blink of a weekend–a day, actually–of barbecues and appliance sales, yet Pride gets a whole month. They don’t mention veterans, but the email from our school district (school’s out for the summer, peeps) asks me to click on a link to explore Pride history with my kids. (I don’t, and I’m not sure how sexual content somehow gets a pass for kindergartners.) My phone and my computer both make sure I’m aware of Pride: I get an unsolicited rainbow flag screen saver and a daily calendar reminder. Around Memorial Day, I used to get paper poppies outside of the grocery store; but not anymore. Those sweet VFW men and women are hardly safe in the King Sooper’s parking lot.
Memorial Day: We are talking about people who died for our right to pursue happiness, put our kids in school, defend our homes, remain silent in a sticky situation, have a fair trial, hire a lawyer. We can drive to McDonalds and order a burger and a shake any time of day or night. We can sue said McDonald’s for making coffee too hot. We’re allowed to camp and play in a nation that claims 200,000,000 acres of national forests (we citizens own it). We can dream up a job, apply to any college, worship in any temple, mosque, church, or Applebees. We can spend all night playing Pokemon, we can refuse to floss our teeth. We are free to start up hippie communes or become professional cage fighters. We can give all our money to the Sierra Club or spend it all on cigarettes. We can have twenty kids and forty cats and star on a show on TLC. Just about nothing is off limits: We can adopt shelter pets and slap the perfect bumper sticker on our car. We can apply for unemployment. We can get abortions. Yes, we can even decide we don’t like how God made us and make up new realities where we aren’t hes or shes, but theys. Men can dress like women and women can misrepresent men.
This is all because of what Memorial Day represents, for better or worse. So I’m unclear on Pride Month. What is everyone so proud of? You being you and me being me? Living exactly how we want? Excuse me for saying it, but that is straight up America. Lean into your roots.
Pride actually collapses on itself in the face of scrutiny. It is pure humanism–man becomes its own savior, its own god–and then destroys itself with its ever-shifting reasoning (ahem, wokeness). Exactly how much do we all need to know about each other before we are more accepting, or more acceptable? I’m being sarcastic, of course, because looking at the news today, I’m pretty sure the more we know, the more we hate. The more we dig into history, the more reproach we bear. The more I find out about you, and vice-versa, the more us-versus-them it becomes.
But I keep seeing more and more layers being added, more confessional-style posts, more politically-bent discussions, more say-this-and-say-it-right-the-first-time. The initial mild disagreement morphs into a heated, blood-boiling hate for everyone who opposes your self-appointed worldview.
The humanistic mentality–“Pride”–tricks you into thinking you are the judge and jury, a demi-god of goodness and acceptance. Meanwhile, you’re actually burning the whole world to the ground.
Trust me, you bastions of progressive freedom: your children will despise you someday for your moral ambiguity. May we never get the hang of using pronouns, lest we destroy the precious soul who demands we use them.
I’ve had a coming out of my own.
It took me a solid three and a half decades before I came out in public as an unconventional Jesus-follower. Most of it was a fear of unacceptance, but also I was scared pretty early on by the door knocking scene of the 1990s and the scream it from the rooftops evangelicals. The pressure put on an eleven year old at church camp to lead someone else to Christ via dogeared Bible pages (verses highlighted) or a nifty folding cube with pictures of a chasm and a cross–well, it’s safe to say that felt like a warm hell of its own to my timid, pre-pubescent self. I might as well get used to the flames if that was what it took to follow Jesus. I didn’t even know what I’d say to God if I died that very night in a car crash, which was the most probable end-of-life scenario according to the pastor who urged us to close our eyes and raise our hands if we needed prayer on the matter.
Many years of trying to figure out the good girl Christianity only ever led me to one conclusion: God saves sinners, of which I am foremost.
But now I am–as they say–out and proud. You’ll probably never catch me door knocking and passing out tracts, but my life has been hidden in Christ with God–which is why you will see Jesus in me. You’ll hear me talk about Him, unashamed. You’ll see me following His rules, because I am taking heed when he says, “what a man sows so also he shall reap”. Day by day I trust Him–in my health, my marriage, my family, my parenting, my work, my relationships, my dreams.
You who are experts at slapping on labels–I will take your Pride pass, and I’ll celebrate my own becoming.
I wish it were half as accepted as identifying as a queer person. It won’t be, but that’s ok. I don’t get just a day or month–I get every day, every month, every year of my life to identify as a believer by turning things over to Jesus.
I don’t need a flag or a screen saver. I don’t need hugs from a random mom at a parade.
I don’t need the approval or acceptance of the multitudes. But I do rely on freedom of speech to write this on the internet, and so I am grateful for the folks who have risked their lives to keep my beloved country free.
I have decided to leave the excessive and flamboyant up to God. What if I give all I have to gain what He gives? How could I not be satisfied with His over the top attention? It is enough to write novels about, enough to light up the sky.
A friend let us clip some peonies from his yard to add to our flower vase. I sat at the kitchen table, and stared as the bud for two days as it opened into flower. It really is something, as if God made a fist like a magician and poked petals inside until he couldn’t hold anymore. Enough petals that when a peony blooms, God opens his fist and the flower bends over, its full weight laboring until a million soft, fragrant petals are born.
In my mason jar are stalks of lavender, their purple jewels majestically leaning over the peony. Starry columbines tilt their heads down to look on the showy scene. Bright bachelor’s buttons and massive fuschia poppies burst like fireworks around the full-tutu pink peony.
It’s kind of silly to say, but I want it for every single person–to see what rainbows are in a handful of flowers. The Creator of colors, textures, scents, feelings, and every human expression–He wants to know you–YOU. His power in changing you into a new person is profound and spectacular. We don’t have to dig up dirt or drag old sins into the spotlight. We don’t have to dress up and create a new version of ourselves, one that is more inclusive or culturally aware. We just have to ask Jesus to take over.
Looking at a fistful of blossoms, I can attest there is a God that puts on a parade every day in my front yard. He’s a Divine show-off.
Maybe I’m biased, but I think it is kind of American, too.
