Planting Seeds

different. We’ve learned that we can’t go back to those nostalgic places without also being forced to shed some of ourselves in order to be accepted again. Whatever we choose, a part of us gets ripped out of our hearts. God usually becomes a casualty in the ripping.

You see, I know that nothing in any Church that brought shame, self-hate, or rejection had one iota to do with God. A local preacher once said that if anything makes you feel bad about yourself, that’s not coming from God. People have done an awful lot of damage in the name of God. People calling themselves servants of God have done the devil’s work. Good and evil co-exist in all places and churches are not immune. The trauma of rejection tends to tie God to the building and the people who caused the rejection, so God also gets blamed. For those who are rejected, the thought of God’s house becomes a negative image and a bad memory. Eventually, it’s just God with all the blame.

As Pride Day comes around again, I’m reminded of why I go each year and set up a booth with my Church. I get asked a lot why I put myself through this when most people there want nothing to do with religion. My hope is to get a chance to listen to their stories and maybe have a conversation. Sure, they tell me they don’t need religion to have God. True, but also not realistic. Remember that story of the seed planted? You know, the one planted all by itself that gets blown away when the storms and winds come because it didn’t have a deep root system? That’s us in this world of distraction without a faith community surrounding us to keep us grounded. God’s voice in our hearts gets drowned out from the constant distractions. We don’t even know when it happens. We just wake up one day and don’t even remember when Easter was. We are influenced heavily by our environment, whether we are willing to admit it or not. An environment that doesn’t reflect God’s love for us, God’s yearning

By Beth Trouy

for us to be close and share this love with others—well, it causes God to fade into the shadows. What we focus on grows and what we ignore, withers. Faith, like knowledge, requires focused attention.

I go to Pride to water that seed that God planted in each of us. God is nothing but love. If any Church preaches hate or rejection, then leave. But go out and find one that sounds more like God. If I can just plant a seed in their broken hearts to remind them that God never left them, if I can just help them see that God travels all this way to Pride to meet them where they are, just to be sure they hear it again: they are loved, just as they are in that moment, and always have been. You see, this is the one constant in life: we are loved and desired by God. It’s a simple message. For as much as we need the gay community to help us survive in this world, we need a faith community even more to keep us rooted in love over fear in this world and whatever comes next.