The train is in motion. A man has to pee. He goes near the washroom but then turns back as he sees two people kissing. He turns back only to realize that one of them is his son. He goes back to confirm it and he vomits. It was for sure his son but only with another boy. This scene is from the movie Shubha Mangalam Jyada Sawadhan. Feeling nauseated is the general feeling or notion of people towards relationship of queer people. It is gross. It is dirty.
But today, I would like to share a testimony
of my friend from the other side.
After days of getting comfortable with each other, we had some questions for our friend. Of course, the first thing to always ask is, “How do you do it?” (We didn’t even say “sex” out loud because we were “chaste Christian girls,” sex was something only “characterless girls” speak about we were followers of "Virgin" Mary, Pure and Spotless). “And you know it is a sin, right?” (To our heteronormative minds, the only “fulfilling sex” can/should be between a man and a woman).
She smiled and said, “as it happens with all during teenage, I too, had a crush but the difference was, it was on a girl. Well I thought to myself it is just a passing phase. When I go to college, I will start liking a boy, I assured myself. I entered college and was trying my best to find a boy to fall in love with, to find him attractive, any boy. But I only discovered that a boy can only be my friend. I was not attracted to them in any other way. And then she entered my life. We were friends initially, but as time went by, my feelings for her changed. Her smile, her voice, the constant urge to be with her, to know her only grew intensely. It was beautiful. I would stay up and weep at nights. Ask God to take these feelings away from me. Was I not taught from my childhood that a man and a woman were to be together? The Bible says it. The very word of God! This was sin! I cannot feel this for another girl I have to feel this only for a boy. But what do I do with these strong feelings? I did not ask for them, no one forced me to have them! They are surely the work of Satan. The tussle of what I was taught and how strongly I felt, kept going on within me for several months. But then one day I surrendered. My struggle was like that of Jacob where God wrestled him on Peniel. It was in this wrestling that Jacob became Israel. The whole time that I thought I was fighting with Satan; it was actually God wrestling with me to unlearn this “filthy love.” In that place where I was made to feel dirty and filthy about myself (by the church and the society), I encountered God who breathed into me and reminded me that I was created in the very image of God. In that moment when I accepted myself, I became ALIVE!
Sin, is when you belittle people and are deaf to their stories because of your all-knowing ego. Sin is you, using God’s word to create hate and fear for people who are different, as they do not serve your patriarchal structures. Sin is your hearts of stone, which is stubborn not to understand that, love has to be the center in our quest for God. Sin is you being arrogant and dismissive, not to accept the life in abundance, which Christ promised, I am living it!”
Prayer
O
God of Life, we want to thank you for this beautiful world that you have
created in all its uniqueness and variety. The Creation gives us the glimpses
of your diverse nature. Lord, we have been ignorant and persistent in not accepting
our friends who are different from us. We have conveniently been blind to their
existence. Lord, strip us off of our ignorance and arrogance and fill our hearts
with your love so that we are able to see, listen and love one another. Amen.
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Author: Rev. Priscilla Rawade
About the Author: Priscilla is an ordained minister of the Church of North India. She completed her Bachelor of Divinity from Bishop’s College, Kolkata and her Master of Theology in Biblical Studies (Old Testament) from the United Theological College, Bangalore. She is currently teaching in the department of Biblical Studies (Old Testament) in Bishop’s College, Kolkata.