Pride Eucharist

There is this thing that happens to me during church services (and other times). Without warning, I'll suddenly be fighting back from crying. It might be in a hymn or a reading---absolutely no way to guess when it'll happen, but I'll suddenly find it hard to carry on with the singing or whatever. All my energy goes into not crying.

That happened this evening. I into Houston's Montrose district for the Pride Parade. I was going to be walking with the truck that was carrying folks from the local Integrity chapter and St. Stephen's Episcopal, the congregation I'm attending.

Before the parade started, we celebrated the Eucharist. We were in our designated spot, some on the truck that was decorated for the parade, most of us milling about on the ground, #34 in line. The tailgate/lift on the back of the truck became the altar with the bread and wine set up. A priest from Trinity Church lead the rite.

The words are all familiar, nothing new to me. The context, however, was everything. On that noisy, chaotic corner, with parade floats and costumes all around us, music blaring, we gave thanks to God for being with us, for feeding us, for sustaining us for the work (and play) God has given us.

It surprised me that this affected me as it did. I won't attempt to explain it, other than to say:

It was indeed meet, right, and salutary.