“When it’s time to go onstage, 
know that you’re not ready but
this is not about being ready, 
it’s not even about being fierce, 
or fearless, it’s about being free.”
—Dean Atta, The Black Flamingo

Three religious professionals walk into a bar: a queer UU minister, a female priest from the Ecumenical Catholic Communion tradition, and a trans nonbinary Disciples of Christ minister. It’s amateur drag night and we’re all there to see our friend perform. In the tiny back room of the newest gay bar in town, we crowd in with strangers and friends to celebrate these drag newbies.

For some this is their first drag show—both performers and audience members—but everyone claps loudly, cheers enthusiastically, and generously offers wadded up cash to the brave kings and queens strutting their stuff on the stage.

The Catholic priest asks, “Should I have brought dollar bills?”

“Here,” I say, handing her mine. She hands the money into a drag king, who palms the money and kisses the back of her hand. “Oh!” she exclaims, fanning herself and blushing.

Our friend takes the stage, eliciting shouts of appreciative laughter as they sashay across the stage to the TLC song “No Scrubs” wearing a jacket covered in sponges and a skirt made of rubber gloves. There’s joy in the celebration of creativity, and we yell with pride: “We know them!”

Then it’s the final act. A tall, elegant drag queen strides on stage in massive, spiked platform heels and an ornate black cassock to the opening refrain of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”: Reach out, touch faith. Everyone screams in recognition.

With each stride and squat, the cassock splits to reveal black garter straps and a leather bustier. She is glorious. She looks at each one of us as though she can see beyond the bright lights of the stage and into our hearts.

Your own personal Jesus / Someone to hear your prayers / Someone who cares

She slides and grinds, genuflects and bows, praying with her body the prayer that all LGBTQ+ folks say at some point: See me as I am. Accept me for myself. Love all of me.

The song continues, Feeling unknown / And you’re all alone / Flesh and bone. This is why we gather, in the back rooms of bars and on the streets during Pride: to be known, to be free to be fully ourselves, to feel deep in our bodies the truth that we are not alone. When the world tells you your love is a sin, that your body is a transgression, to be seen is baptism; to be accepted is grace; to be loved is the Holy made real.

The song winds down—Reach out, touch faith—and our drag show priestess brings out a tray laden with wafers. My friends and I turn to each other in wonder: “We get to have communion?” So often in the position of giving, we religious professionals, on this night, get to receive. We line up at the stage, leaning forward, mouths open to receive the host. “Take. Eat. You are loved,” she says, over and over.

That night an Ecumenical Catholic, a Disciple of Christ, and a UU each received communion: the blessing of being seen, the blessing of being accepted, the blessing of being loved. That night, the blessing of belonging brought the holy into being. That night, reaching out for community, we touched faith.

Prayer

Spirit of Life and Love, Source of Pride and Well of Power, may we always find the places where we belong. In a world struggling to find hope, may each and every one of us be known. May we be free. May we be loved. In the name of all that is holy and life affirming, amen and blessed be.