The purpose of this annointing is to celebrate and affirm queer bodies by decolonizing spiritual rituals and centering Queer liberation, challenging heteronormative and cis-normative interpretations of faith and the Body.
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Everyone, please close your eyes, and take a deep breath. I’m going to start with a poem called “Saints Among Us,” by Natalie Smith.
"I dubbed you the gay virgin
Oh patron saint of defiance
Oh saint of endurance
watched you exist in a world that denied the truth of you
wondered how you kept going
when every mass
every theology class
your two-hour confession
told you to be someone else
to silence your sainthood
to deny love
deny all that's holy and sacred
You of the Dog Voice
You of the always has a book on hand
bookmarking your book with another book
certain there's a grape in your drink
Always reaching in
sticky all over the bar counter
I hope you always have bread on your table and hot pockets in your freezer
Oh woman mosaic
Oh decorative snap backs on the wall
Oh spray-painted record player
Oh fighter of the good fight
Oh mixer of the sacred and profane
They say I can't nominate a living saint
Yet in my own company of holy ones
You're already canonized"
Our ritual today is rooted in anointing our bodies with oil. I chose not a baptism for this practice, which implies cleansing to make pure. Our queer bodies do not need to be cleansed. They demand to be anointed. To be set apart. To be worshipped as divine.
My favorite example of this is the poem by Jay Hulme, “Jesus at the Gay Bar.”
“He’s here in the midst of it –
right at the centre of the dance floor,
robes hitched up to His knees
to make it easy to spin.
At some point in the evening
a boy will touch the hem of His robe
and beg to be healed, beg to be
anything other than this;
and He will reach His arms out,
sweat-damped, and weary from dance.
He’ll cup the boy’s face in His hand
and say,
my beautiful child
there is nothing in this heart of yours
that ever needs to be healed.”
So, I invite you all to take your oil and place it in front of you. I will have you all bless your own oil. And to anoint yourself as an affirmation that in your body, you are divine. For in this practice, you are both anointer and the anointed. You are the divine source and the divine creation. You were birthed from love and you overflow love to others. In this way, your body is working together for your own good and for the good of our collective community.
I want you all to take the below blessing prompt and create your own oil blessing. I will share mine as an example before we begin. Feel free to make it your own.
“This oil represents ___________________. With it, I tell myself I am worthy of all________________. My body, in all of its _______________________, is sacred. It is precious and magnificent. Let this oil be a reminder of my personal consecration. My being set apart because of my _____________________. With it, I anoint myself.”
[My example: This oil represents my gift and devotion to myself. With it, I tell myself I am worthy of all love. My body, in all of its Queerness, with its arthritic joints, its tender forehead, its sensitive tummy, and endless anxiety, its unease, and attention deficit, and also its strength, its perseverance, and its love and humor and joy and compassion, is sacred. It is precious and magnificent. Let this oil be a reminder of my personal consecration. My being set apart because of my sacred and holy and messy body. With it, I anoint myself.]
Take a few minutes to write down your blessing.
Place your hand over your oil, and recite your blessing aloud. Then, anoint yourself with the oil wherever and however you like. You can mark your head, you can rub it on the inside of your wrists, or if there is any place in your body you want to particularly honor, any pain or hurt or heartbreak, place the oil there.
Let’s all begin our anointing.
As we conclude the ritual, please close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Pay attention to your body. Silently thank it for its existence. For each breath.
Thank you and Amen.