Pride without prejudice

  

"What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars."
(William Wordsworth)

 

The celebration now known as "Brighton Pride" is now in it's 40th year. Incredibly, the first march or parade was a smallish affair organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front in 1973; a mere seven years earlier and such a gathering of predominantly openly"out and proud" homosexuality could have culminated in custodial sentences. As in recent years, this Brighton Pride Weekend of 3rd and 4th August saw gay police officers from the city marching at the height of the parade. For the sixth successive year, they were joined by gay officers from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight constabularies, men and women and all proudly in uniform.
The Pride festivities are now organised by a specially created community-interest company, enabling and producing events that celebrate lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans-gender lives. The weekend now extends beyond the parade and the music festival in Preston Park to include a city-wide arts and film festival. Brighton Pride always aims to raise not only awareness, smiles and spirits but also funds for local community groups and charities. These essentially include HIV and AIDS support groups. As a former voluntary carer and fundraiser for the Terrence Higgins Trust, I'm always heartened to see THT's friendly and inclusive presence at such events. This year, it's estimated that more than £40,000 has been raised for the collective "Rainbow Fund".
In fact, general inclusivity across the parade and celebrations was bright and evident in Brighton this year. I was working over the Pride weekend and didn't really intend to join the parade or activities, but the theatrical enthusiasm was infectious. The theme of the festivities this year was gay icons across the arts and media. I found myself queuing in my local Aldi behind two male Monroes and ahead of a variety of Freddie Mercury and Cher lookalikes. Even iconic-wannabees fancy a bargain. I wandered past what I refer to as my local cheap-frock shop, only to find they were offering multi-coloured tutus as "buy one get one free". The rather skimpily curtained changing cubicles were full of delightful but quite large gentlemen taking advantage of the tutu sale: I had my doubts about their ballet credentials.
My one unwitting concession to the very sunny Pride weekend was to wear a homestead sundress and a straw cowboy hat from the 99p Shop. Along the walk home I was serenaded and yeehaw-ed at by a variety of cowboys, cowgirls and Native American Indians. Clearly, I had forgotten about the impact of the (beautiful) film "Brokeback Mountain"; and the cherished close partnership of The Lone Ranger and Tonto. As I emerged back onto Lewes Road, a Lady GaGa, Bugs Bunny, complete with carrot, and two very male, very bare-chested nuns tickled me as I went past their group. Turns out that Sally Field as The Flying Nun is a definite gay icon - who knew? The tickling incident was a bit of a shock although not unpleasant; I still haven't worked out where dear ol' Bugs Bunny fits into all this.
Attendance estimates for the weekend seem to vary wildly this year too; from the very conservative police figure of 30,000 to the extravagant 150,000 from some of the official sponsors. As with most things in life, the truth rests somewhere in the shade of the two extremes. As George Bernard Shaw suggested, life is not so much about finding yourself as it is about creating yourself. Obviously the good-natured openness and tolerance I witnessed locally extended across the city and over the whole weekend: there were about forty arrests in the city that weekend, probably the same as on any other hot summer weekend at the seaside.
When I first moved to Brighton, I found the tone of Pride quite different. Always promoted as a family celebration, it started to feel a little exclusive to me as a heterosexual female; although I felt saddened rather than threatened. My sexuality and my beliefs, including my Catholicism, sit very comfortably with dear friends made over the years who happen to be gay and the respect and affection I have for the gay community in Brighton. Essentially, I believe Brighton Pride must be inclusive to all ages, genders, sexualities and values to remain valid as well as supported. The point is that every gay man and woman is someone's son, daughter, brother, sister, possibly someone's parent; a police officer, a nurse, your neighbour, a friend.
I have no problem with Brighton Pride being proud, as long as it remains valiant rather than becoming arrogant. I'd actually like to see a celebration of self-worth extend beyond the gay community in Brighton, indeed beyond the city. A few days after Pride 2013, I've had to yet again complain to the city council about the street I live in being used as a little city dump. One person leaves a broken vacuum cleaner in the road, another person leaves a chair, then a large broken mirror appears propped up perilously against the side of a house. The street cleaner still isn't cleaning one side of the road, presumably because of the debris on the pavement.
This area is made up of whole streets of largely rented properties and this is the heart of campus country. After an attempted break-in at my little house the other week, a well-intentioned policeman sympathised that my area is disadvantaged and therefore resentful He noted that if people haven't grown up here or simply feel "dumped" here, the lack of strong roots can destroy the growth of future community. I do feel that when folk have no sense of connection with where they find themselves in life, there's no concept of pride in where they live and sadly, sometimes in how they treat others.
"Pride" is a widely used yet perhaps little understood word. With a negative connotation, often synonymous with "hubris", it refers to an inflated sense of self, often at the expense of all else; in Christianity, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Yet the word itself originates from the Latin "prodis" - "to be of use or service". Through time, this evolved into the Old French and English words for valiant and noble.
With a positive connotation, pride can refer to a sense of attachment towards one's own choices, beliefs or actions, and towards others. It can be the worthy product of self-reflection, a sense of appreciation, a feeling of fulfilment or belonging. There's a sense of exaltation in the mindset behind Brighton Pride which I feel St Augustine himself would have appreciated. His take on pride without prejudice was that we should have a sense of our own "excellence", to the glory of God who created us; including that bouncy young man so wonderfully dressed as Bugs Bunny. And my fabulous bargain Stetson.

 

 

"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us."

(Jane Austen)

 

 

 

 

The Rainbow Fund
Sussex Community Foundation
Falcon Wharf
Railway Lane
LEWES
BN7 2AQ

info@sussexgiving.org.uk

 

www.brightonpride.org

 

www.tht.org.uk

 

  

"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."
(Thomas Merton)

"Pride perceiving humility honourable, often borrows her cloak."

(Thomas Fuller)

 

"Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay."
(Francois de la Rochefoucauld)

 (Photo: Gigi, album)
Yeehaw x

"Wake Me Up When It's All Over" Avicii

 

 

The Saint of the Jet Stream

"St Swithun's day if thou dost rain,

For forty days it will remain.

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare"

Certainly in Brighton and around Hampshire, where I've been staying for the past few days, it didn't  noticeably rain on St Swithin's Day - 15th July. Of course, it poured with a vengeance the following day, surely not the last sodden Monday before the end of the "summer holidays" in the UK. Originally called Swithun, his name has become synonymous with British weather lore, and possibly further afield. However, he's scarcely mentioned in any document of his own time. He's known to have been Bishop of Winchester between 852 to his death on 2 July 862: his death is entered in the Canterbury manuscript the "Anglo Saxon Chronicle" for that year. Over than a hundred years later, Swithun was adopted as patron of the restored church at Winchester, formerly dedicated to saints Peter and Paul. His body was then transferred from an almost forgotten grave to the new basilica at Winchester in 971, an event which does seem to have inspired contemporaneous reports of numerous miracles.

Swithun's revival then gave rise to a mass of legendary literature. Notably, from a monk called Goscelin of St Bertin, we learn that Swithun was born in Hampshire in the reign of  Egbert of Wessex and that he was later ordained priest by the Bishop of Winchester. Renowned and respected, he was regarded as a close friend and adviser by Egbert, who appointed him tutor of his son Aethelwulf. He would later be appointed Bishop of Winchester under the patronage of Aethelwulf. In his new office he quickly became known for his zeal in building new churches and his passion for restoring old ones. He was also a pious and humble man, known for making his diocesan journeys on foot and inviting the poor to banquets which excluded the rich.

Swithun's best known miracle was his restoration of a poor widow's basket of eggs that workmen had maliciously broken, although there are many other stories of his compassion and humility. Before his death, he instructed that he was not to be buried within the church, but outside in a "vile and unworthy place". Initially, Swithun was accordingly buried out of doors, where it might be subject to the trampling feet of passers-by and to the inclement weather from on high. In 971, his body was moved to a new indoor shrine; his weather-lore legend might be traced back to an uncommonly heavy downpour on the day of his re-interment, seen as a sign of the saint's displeasure that his remains were being moved against his wishes. Other chroniclers have suggested that the legend derives from the tremendous rainstorm which occurred on St Swithin's Day in 1315.

However, the meteorological interpretation is relatively straightforward. Most people are familiar with the concept of jet streams: powerful air currents caused by a combination of the earth's rotation and atmospheric heating from solar radiation. The position of the northern hemisphere jet stream around the end of June and into mid July indicates the position of  the frontal zone of our weather system: this in turn determines the weather patterns (hot / cold, wet / dry) for the rest of the summer. Whoever originally told the tale of the St. Swithin's Day deluge may well have been aware that the summer weather patterns established at the beginning of July tend to persist throughout the subsequent few weeks. This is statistically proven in 8 out of 10 years.
Little wonder that Swithun's weather rule is also known in other western European countries. In France, they say "Quand il pleut a la Saint Gervais Il pleut quarante jours apres - If it rains on St. Gervais' day (19th of July), it will rain for forty days thereafter". Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon your viewpoint, I know nothing of St Gervais!

"Pennies From Heaven"  Billie Holiday

God's heartbeat doesn't skip

"The heart is the only broken instrument that works"

(T E Kalem)

Colleen writes a lovely blog called "Thoughts of Grace" . She has a very gentle turn of phrase which is also extremely resonant. About ten days ago, she posted about the reassuring "click click" of her beloved husband's mechanical aortic valve replacement: for the past fourteen years she's been able to hear his heartbeat without a stethoscope. Colleen also wrote that sometimes we forget to listen for the heartbeat of God.  I'm often silenced by the beauty of the words of others these days and this was one such moment.
I recently read somewhere a quote from The Book of Ezekiel, about God giving man a singleness of heart and replacing our hearts of stone with tender ones of flesh. Lately, I've been struggling to keep my head above the waterline with many things: trying to keep up with friends' relationships, stressing about what people think of me, counting pennies instead of sheep at night. My own little heart is not so little as it's enlarged on one side and a common or garden chest infection has introduced a wee atrial flutter: beat beat beat skip skip beat. This could be due to many things, including stressing over all of the above!  Of course I've focused on it and have been drawn into myself. I listen to "outside" noise looking to be irritated by it, I listen to the opinions of others, I listen to background music; and I get hung up on the irregularities of my own heartbeat. What I really need is to be quietened by the constance of the heartbeat of God.
God doesn't succumb to stress or atrial fluttering. His beat never skips. It's the primeval pulse, the essence of vitality, peace and reason sought by the new age crystal practitioners in Brighton's North Laine as much as by the suited and booted church regulars taking their love to the altar, their babies to the font, and their flowers to the cemetery. Listen; and you will find it in the murmur of well wishers, the unsolicited greetings of strangers, in birdsong and the cheerful nonsense of children, in the rhythm and ritual of the Mass, in the ticking of your late father's watch, in the certainty of your own name from another's lips. It's in the hush at either end of each day, it's the breathing space before words spoken are heard, it's the soft echo of longing, remorse or forgiveness of everything unsaid.

My Mum was a petite lady whose frailty in her later years belied the strength of purpose of her own enlarged heart. The congenital failure which claimed her last beat started with a hole in her heart, discovered after scarlet fever as a child. During one of her last cardiac checkups in 2010, the consultant was incredulous that although the left side of her heart was barely functioning, she was still alive. Ironically, whatever her faults and the fallouts of her Norn Irish temper, my Mum was known to be all heart. After Dad died, Mum and I clung together through the tantrums of my teenage years and she indulged my penchant for various indie, protest-pop and rock bands. Once introduced by me, she and Bruce Springsteen got on like a house on fire. She came to see The Boss at Wembley Stadium, leaning on a walking stick after a hip replacement (Mum, not Bruce) and stood for his four hour show, thumping the ground to her favourite songs. She later complained that, although she thought he was "smashing", he could have played for a bit longer for the money. Towards the end of her life, as Mum grew more weary of being housebound, I would often chivvy her into watching the music chart show on TV; I can still hear her today saying such and such a tune had "a good beat". Somewhere in the brash eighties production of "Dancing in the Dark", I can still grasp her walking stick keeping tempo. I wasn't there when Mum's heart gave up the beat; in the dreadful fester of days afterwards, I have no idea when her rhythm slipped in step with mine. Now when my heart skips, I can feel my Mum beating for me, just as she did from before I drew my first breath.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard God's heartbeat loud and clear during a Mass for the Sick. The service took place in the Hampshire parish where my Mum is buried, and where I've since made some very dear friends. As one of the seven sacraments, "Extreme Unction" was known as the blessed anointing of those who were terminally ill. Since 1972, the Roman Catholic Church has used the name "Anointing of the Sick" and the sacrament is extended to all those who are suffering in mind or body.

 Photo: Gigi

Photo: Frances

The Anointing of the Sick is given to restore and strengthen the body and the spirit; and to enable a state of grace for any continuing journey with pain or anguish. That Sunday, I watched other people after they had received their blessing, with a slight smile and an upward tilt to the chin. Several people I spoke to said they felt such peace after the mass. I also felt that the congregation and the men who were anointing them were moving quietly in step with the heartbeat of God. Intention, purpose and effect seemed to beat as one. 

When my little cat Sooty was terminally ill, with a chest tumour that was growing over her own heart, I often pressed my cheek to her fur for the familiarity of it and also to catch her brave little heartbeat. I miss her terribly, and often find myself reaching across the stillness of a moment to rekindle that scent and softness; her beat. When I'm even more still, I feel I can catch other inexorable rhythms finely underpinning every traffic hum, every tick of every clock in my home; and yes, my own sporadically dysfunctional beat beat beat skip. I believe we live between God's heartbeats, carried by His constancy. When our own hearts flutter and finally fail, I believe our names are still found by others in His comforting rhythm. His pace is oblivious to our progresses, stresses and turmoil: His love doesn't miss a beat; He is the pacemaker of the world.



"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart"

( Mahatma Gandhi)

"If I Should Fall Behind"  Bruce Springsteen