What the pastor said
A sermon about people like me, and the moment in the pew when my prayer changed shape.
Today the sermon was about us. Not by name; he never says the word as if it might apply to anyone in the room. Abomination. The West. A spirit. The reason for the exchange rate, I think, though I may have stopped listening by then. People said amen. Mama said amen. I said amen, a half-second after Papa.
And something happened that I want to write down before it goes. I was praying, the way I always pray in that seat, the prayer I have prayed every night since I was twelve: change me. And in the middle of it, while he was still talking, the prayer turned around in my mouth. I did not decide it. It just turned. Instead of change me it was: bless them. Bless us. God bless gay people.
I said it under my breath while three hundred people said amen to the opposite. I have never felt closer to God in that building. I have never felt further from everyone in it.
I do not know what to do with this. I am writing it down so that it is real. God bless gay people. There. It is written.