The theme for this year’s MLP Pride Service was Queer Joy as Resistance. We are living through times that require much resistance: protesting, calling your representatives to make sure a budget that cuts lifeline support to our most vulnerable siblings doesn’t pass, registering people to vote, organizing in your communities. This is all necessary work. But grinding day in and day out is not sustainable without two elements that go hand in hand: community and joy. There is a reason why authoritarian regimes immediately criminalize public gatherings and eliminate budgets for the arts. Without dancing, laughing, singing, and painting, we can’t do the work of liberating each other long term.
I wonder if that’s why Qohelet, the author of my favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, said: “So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.”
So, friends, go and eat, drink, and enjoy yourselves. The work will still be there when you return.
-Claudia
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