Responsive Reading for Pride Month
CALL: The Psalmist says: As for me, I will live with integrity…[i]
RESPONSE: Pride is the response of dignity and integrity to shame.
Pride begins for me when I decide my integrity is worth more than my fear, my dignity worth more than the fears of the world.
CALL: The 14th Dalai Lama says: Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive.[ii]
RESPONSE: Pride is believing that I am worthy of compassion.
Pride is believing that my experiences of suffering have strengthened me to offer compassion to others, even to those who cannot yet have compassion for themselves.
CALL: Rumi says: The essence of the spirit transcends all divisions:
its nature reflects the Divine Transcendence.[iii]
RESPONSE: Pride is holding ourselves and one another accountable to dignity, and to the Divine.
Pride is the memory and the promise of many traditions that we are divinely created and divinely loved, that the boundless diversity of humanity is somehow a reflection of the very nature of the Divine.
CALL: Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha teaches from the Bhagavad Gita:
Seeing the Lord equally present in all, one does not hurt or kill another.
When non-hurting becomes one’s habit, all goodness and nobility will irresistibly follow.[iv]
RESPONSE: Pride is respect at the foundation of our relationships to ourselves and one another.
Pride is respect for the integrity of living openly and honestly, respect for the compassion of loving across the experience of difference, respect for the truth of our unity and our diversity.
CALL: The Prophet Isaiah says: Arise, shine, for your light has come...[v]
RESPONSE: Pride is the joy of shining brilliantly when you no longer have to hide.
Pride is the excellence that flourishes when relationships, communities, and institutions are built and re-built on a foundation of integrity, compassion, accountability, and respect; when each of us can, as the Psalmist says, "stand with our feet on level ground" before one another, shining in the light.
Charge: As we stand together to raise the Pride flag this morning, we ground ourselves in tradition and memory as we lift our hopes for the future. We declare our commitment to live out these values of integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, and excellence in our relationships with all members of our community, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.
Let us celebrate the rich spectrum of diverse identities within our communities, let us honor the courage of those who dared - and still strive - to live their lives with integrity, and let us continually seek to respect and rejoice in the dignity of every human being.[vi]
[i] Psalm 26:11, translation from The Book of Common Prayer, 1979.
[ii] The 14th Dalai Lama, quoted in ”What is Compassion?” by Dr. Alexander Berzin, Matt Lindén (https://studybuddhism.com/en/essentials/what-is/what-is-compassion)
[iii] Muhammad Isa Waley, and Jalal al-Din Rumi. A Treasury of Rumi. The Treasury Series in Islamic Thought and Civilisation. Leicestershire, United Kingdom: Kube Publishing Ltd, 2019. Section 2.1: ”The World of Opposites”
[iv] Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha, https://www.hinduamerican.org/hindu-leaders-reflections-on-oneness
[v] Isaiah 60:1, NRSV
[vi] Paraphrase from The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 305: ”Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
ACPE CPE students Katie Hoyer and Rabbi Joshua Ackerman co-authored a responsive reading for Mary WashingtonHospital's Pride Month flag-raising, the first event of its kind at the hospital in Fredericksburg, VA. Katie can be reached at Katherine.Hoyer@mwhc.com and Joshua can be reached at Joshua.Ackerman@mwhc.com.
