{"id":1782,"date":"2016-10-05T07:09:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T11:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1782"},"modified":"2016-10-05T07:16:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T11:16:19","slug":"holy-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1782","title":{"rendered":"Holy Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"

This essay first appeared in the October 2, 2016 issue of the <\/em>Durham Herald-Sun<\/strong>. http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com\/opinion\/columnists\/amy_laura_hall\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Years ago, I was at a concert downtown to hear a vaguely Christian folk singer. He sang something that, at the time, I thought was profound: \u201cWith all the beauty this world has worth knowing, pride won\u2019t get us where we\u2019re going.\u201d\u00a0 I liked this so much I made these words the signature on my email account.\u00a0 I now shake my head at my younger self.\u00a0 Some friends could have written one simple question back at me: \u201cWhat about the Gay Pride Parade?\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, I participated in two different acts of pride. On Thursday, a group of Duke Divinity students led about a hundred people on a singing vigil through the new cafeteria on West Campus.\u00a0 The women leading the procession carried candles, summoning us to continue one avowal: \u201cWe who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.\u201d\u00a0 This act was an act of lamentation.\u00a0 We were lamenting racist terror in the U.S., most recently the killing of Keith Scott and Terence Crutcher.\u00a0 We were singing to and with one another, committing to resist the pretense that racist terror is normal.\u00a0 To my mind, African-American women are too infrequently encouraged at Duke to speak loudly and tell other people what to do, where to go, and what to sing.\u00a0 So, this liturgy felt also like an act of courage.\u00a0 Their words, their leadership, looked to me like holy pride \u2013 precisely the kind of pride that Duke needs more of if we are going to find beauty in this world and get where we need to be going.\u00a0 Judging by the looks on many faces of people who were working in the new cafeteria, other people were grateful too.<\/p>\n

Then, on Saturday, my daughter and I walked with thousands of people through Durham for North Carolina\u2019s 32nd<\/sup> Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Festival Parade, otherwise known as the \u201cGay Pride Parade.\u201d\u00a0 Noting the convergence of tragedy the same week, some participants carried signs of solidarity against racist terror.\u00a0 Some people started up conversations with members of the Durham Police Department, perhaps in an attempt to understand another human being\u2019s perspective face-to-face.\u00a0 I was struck again by how diverse the group gathered was.\u00a0 I know that sounds clich\u00e9.\u00a0 But, truly, the Pride Parade is every bit as diverse as the North Carolina State Fair.\u00a0 There were people in biker gear, people in cowboy boots, teenagers and people who can remember the first parade over three decades ago.\u00a0 There were Christian groups and Jewish groups and at least one proudly affirming atheist (they were carrying a sign proclaiming this). \u00a0Even within the group from Duke, we were students and friends and faculty \u2013 some of us walking in solidarity, others walking out and proud for the first time.\u00a0 Many, many people from across this beautiful state took the day to risk an unabashed celebration of our beloved selves, recognizing that, for that one day, everyone was on the same page on this one single, basic affirmation:\u00a0 We are proud.<\/p>\n

I have quoted thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas in this column before. He wrote many volumes on Christian doctrine and Christian virtue.\u00a0 He did not affirm the holy beauty of people who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender.\u00a0 But he did write some very helpful things about a vice usually translated as \u201cSloth.\u201d\u00a0 For most people, the word \u201csloth\u201d connotes sitting around on a couch watching bad television and eating take-out pizza for a week.\u00a0 (Which might not actually be a disaster.)\u00a0 But for Thomas Aquinas, sloth is a very particular, moral malady.\u00a0 He suggests sloth is often connected to despair, and that despair often leads to an inability to go about the basic things in life that help us to flourish.\u00a0 Not only does despair indicate a separation from hope in God, but that separation can lead people not to feel like eating, or walking around, or sewing, or dancing, or many of the other practices that are gifts of daily life.\u00a0 Sloth is a kind of \u201csorrow,\u201d he writes, because we deem \u201cevil and worthless\u201d the goods God has given us.\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas even calls sloth a \u201cmortal sin,\u201d in that sloth involves our being fundamentally separated from the affirmation that God loves us and is with us.\u00a0 Again, \u201cwhen this state of mind dominates [someone\u2019s] affections,\u201d it can seem as if we will \u201cnever be able to rise to any good.\u201d<\/p>\n

By my reading of these two events, we were engaging in two different acts of holy pride, reminding one another that our lives are neither \u201cevil\u201d nor \u201cworthless.\u201d On both Thursday and Saturday, people resisted sloth, risking the appearance pridefulness<\/em> for the sake of a virtue called pride.\u00a0 In some Christian circles, these words will sound like nonsense.\u00a0 I\u2019m willing to risk that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This essay first appeared in the October 2, 2016 issue of the Durham Herald-Sun. http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com\/opinion\/columnists\/amy_laura_hall\/ Years ago, I was at a concert downtown to hear a vaguely Christian folk singer. He sang something that, at the time, I thought was profound: \u201cWith all the beauty this world has worth knowing, pride won\u2019t get us where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,213,11,10,207,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-dancing","category-durham","category-ethics","category-love","category-organizing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EotM-sK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1782"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782\/revisions\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}