“I whet my lips to speak your name. To kiss your hands, curling into the posture of prayer, they could almost have been carved from stone. I swear: If idolatry was my only sin, then it’s because god wasn’t watching.”
— Torrin A. Greathouse, from “Ekphrasis on Nude Selfie as Portrait of San Sebastian,” Poetry (vol. 221, no. 2, November 2022)
“One of the biggest problems with religion is that people stubbornly, insistently reduce God to their own size; they imagine that God loves the same people they love, and that God hates the people they hate. This is not just insidious theology; it’s actually idolatry, because people are just worshiping a blown up version of themselves. So let me say it simply: God’s love transcends all of that. When your parents reject you, God loves you; when your friends or classmates make fun of you, God loves you; when your priest, minister, imam, or rabbi tells you that you are an abomination, God loves you; when politicians cater to people’s basest prejudices, God loves you. No matter how many times and in how many ways people make you feel less than human, God knows otherwise, and God loves you. When you feel frightened, or abandoned, or humiliated, I hope the unshakeable conviction that God loves you can help hold you and enable you to persevere.”
— From a Rabbi, An Open Letter To People Who Are LGBTQ by Rabbai Shai Held (via jewishtransition)