Faith, Anger, and Heart: Part Two (Stoplight Guy Forever)

The week that the Unitarian Society of Germantown put “Welcome Pope Francis” on their sign, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration’s sign said something that made way more sense to me: “Beloved Community.” I also noticed that their minister was a woman, so it seemed like it would be a safe place to be while the rest of the city (and my now-former church friends) fell in love with the pope. They put stones in water for their Joys and Sorrows just like USG did, but the congregation shared aloud if they chose to. One member shared his post-Catholic pain during that time, and that was the ONLY mention of the pope. The sermon, given by a layperson who was a woman of color, was explicitly in favor of LGBT rights (The Q hadn’t been widely added yet.) and ended with something like “Someday maybe I’ll be ready to sit down with Kim Davis and try to understand her. But not. Today.”

Still, for all of Restoration’s wokeness-before-that-was-a-mainstream-thing, it was hard to get past the architecture. Just like all of those cathedrals I’d studied in Art History, it was shaped like a cross. All of the characters on the stain glass were white people. Unitarianism, for an anti-racist post-Catholic, is like trying to break the cycle of abuse and then realizing you’re still abusing and being abused, but gently. It’s like one of those dreams where you know a place is your home, but you also know it isn’t.

But still, this spring when the voice in my Kirtan-blissed mind told me to sing in church, Restoration seemed like a good bet.

There’s a flaw in my personality wherein I’m still sort of looking for a perfectly welcoming, perfectly approving community/family. It probably comes from not having been particularly welcomed as a child, from inherited ancestor-grief in my XX chromosomes, or both. It’s a flaw that has caused me unending sorrow as an adult, to the point where if some group seems perfectly kind and safe, I should probably run for my life before I get too attached/expectant/hurt.

When I went back to try Restoration again, my child-brain started to spin its fantasy of perfect welcome. Here’s why my mistake was both understandable and irresistible:

When it was my turn in the Joys and Sorrows, I told the congregation I was feeling scared because the following weekend I would be headed to D.C. to counterprotest the (DELICIOUSLY FAILED! https://theserotoninfactory.blogspot.com/2018/08/my-wonderful-magical-day-of-yelling-at.html) Unite the Right rally. I said I wanted to honor Heather Heyer’s name. And then, the most intoxicating thing happened: the congregation applauded.

As activists, we are trained not to expect rewards or thanks (derisively called “cookies”) for simply doing the right thing. This is in spite of the fact that doing the right thing takes hundreds of hours of unpaid labor and is often physically and emotionally dangerous. Women are especially policed for this (we especially police EACH OTHER for this) and I think the phrase “performative ally” was one of the phrases most successfully weaponized by Russian trolls in 2016. Though I wouldn’t criticize another activist for being praised, I live in (misogynist) fear of being deemed too proud of myself, of being too happy to be in the struggle.

So when the Restoration congregation applauded my efforts, I felt a deep sense of relief and belonging, of sanctuary. As I sat down, I felt briefly free from the family alienation, the Bernie Bro concern-trolling, the microaggressions, the weaponized phrases. I just felt appreciated for a second—a very wholesome drug.

EVEN BETTER: A few Joys and Sorrows behind me in line, there was Stoplight Guy. Stoplight Guy is everything that is right with democracy, with spirituality, with the world. He was a tall African American man with caring-dad energy. He explained that he lived across the street and was there to update the congregation about the very dangerous intersection the church shares with him. He told us about his efforts to get the city to understand the need for a light. There were SO many accidents, he said. It really needed to stop.

If this church had a place for Stoplight Guy, it had a place for me. We sand “When Your Heart Is in a Holy Place,” one of my favorite hymns. I felt refreshed and energized, ready to let my guard down.