Pride 2007

As I was perusing past the many vendors in the park this past weekend I did a great deal of reflection of my first Pride event back in 94. I was a young man out of college and had just ended my first relationship finding myself in a place where I was exhausted with feelings of betrayal and uselessness resulting in an over zealous attitude to compensate my personal worth with destructive actions of self-exploitation in the hopes to try and cover up a broken heart. I remember that Pride as if it was yesterday. I can recall the warm summer breeze and the endless blue skies. The streets were flooded with thousands of people and the atmosphere seemed almost euphoric with thoughts of camaraderie. I didn’t feel alone but found great comfort in the masses of people sounding me, leaving me with almost a sense of normality in the sameness I shared with those around me.

As I strolled around the park the seemingly endless stream of people remained dressed in their colorful attire. The booths were filled with interesting provocative themes as well as corporations self-promoting their organizations. The organizers of the event still proclaimed the park to be an atmosphere that fosters tolerance and acceptance as well as promoting an environment that is family friendly. They were selling an array of trinkets from picture frames and lingerie to insurance policies and grocery products all the while professing this is done in a spirit that promotes their support for the gay community. As always there were endless parties and orgies with bars flooded with shirtless men drinking gallons of alcohol all the while dancing on pedestals searching the crowds with eyes full of lust. However something has changed over the years. Perhaps it’s like a bunch of holidays and after awhile you can’t distinguishes one from another but I believe it’s more then that. Somehow what had changed for me was how I saw these individuals.

I started pondering what does it mean to be proud? Living proudly means we have a proper self-respect and display an action of being very pleased with our self-esteem, however pride can also mean a pack of lions, but that is another analogy I won’t touch on today. What was it about this past weekend that gives reason for being proud? Do I see before me a showy or impressive group? I was raised with the belief that in some way we are all an evangelist of some sort. Heralding the good news by preaching and living out what it is we believe to be true, or at least what we want to convince ourselves as truth so as not to add conviction to our motives or actions. This is a day of reminding the world around us of our demand for equality. I’m reminded of others that went before us men such as the great Martin Luther King Jr. While he didn’t have any glow sticks or leather chaps that showed off his tight round buttocks he through his actions demonstrated to America the inequality of man envisioned in the Declaration of Independence. Through his non-violent protests and his willingness to humble himself as Christ he was able to co-participate in the mission of his faith. With his actions he brought redemption in many ways to the people of our country. White America had an opportunity to hold a mirror up to their faces to see if they image Christ in being a true and authentic gift of self to the community around us.

I am very mindful of the persecution and hardship we as gay men and women have had to endure often in the solitude of our own hearts. I understand the feeling that I am not living up to the potential of who I am and that my life is a mockery of my beliefs. I understand how disappointed we can be dating men and allowing them to use us, to participate in what seems to be an unending carousel that has left us burned-out with a heart that is so hardened by our actions and those of others that we don’t even know how to be a gift of love anymore. We have a creative and undeniable uniqueness, a gift that separates us. Each person is irreplaceable and yet we spend so much time sitting in the shadows of our thoughts yearning to be the image of a man we were created to be but instead allow ourselves to mirror a culture that is trying to keep our personal dignity down by further repressing us by limiting our actions to be controlled by an incessant need of self-gratification.

All I can say is to continue on your quest to find yourself! Do not be afraid to struggle and remind yourself that you are not alone even if society around you is so willingly ready to tell you that you are a freak, somebody that isn’t valued or wanted…a man who will never understand what it means to be a man. No matter where you are or what you have done remember we belong to a much larger community that isn’t separated by our sexuality.

I hope that we all realize to find ourselves, to find purpose, love, and hope means we have to become willing examples of humility and lowliness which often can only come from being prepared to be humiliated for what we know to be true. We have to be my friends a gift of self even to those who mean to do us harm. Remember what you do and how you behave affects everyone and nothing we do harms no one. We are all going to die for something in life. We are all serving a master of some sorts. I ask you what are you willing to die for and why? When I walked around the park all I saw was people who were willing to die for themselves and not for those around us.