Queen Jesus in Provincetown

I love it here in Provincetown.

How beautiful it is

Sister sun, Brother moon, Mother sky.

The light. The incredible light…

This place at the very edge of the American continent,

This natural refuge for outsiders and artists and rebels and queer folk like me.

This queer sanctuary.

This most welcoming place for LGBTI++ people in the whole wide world.

This place which is also the first spot where the Pilgrim Fathers and historically mostly erased Mothers landed

After months and years of suffering

Carrying with them their disastrous life denying brand of Christianity which went on to infest the entire continent,

Holding their most sincerely held beliefs for which they had been relentlessly persecuted

And then went on to relentlessly promote and persecute other people who did not share these beliefs

And also relentlessly persecute themselves and each other.

These dear suffering humans doing their level best to create a better world.

They didn’t stay here too long, apparently, and went off to settle in a place they called Plymouth.

A place whose name resonates with me because the love of my life was part of a family who called themselves Plymouth Brethren

And who believed in a stern unforgiving Father God

And only those who believe in Him would be saved,

Only those who believe in Him in the very specialised way they believe in Him

And everyone else in the vast and infinite realms of God’s creation would be forever damned

And that included me and my beloved and our children

And yet they loved us, and couldn’t bear the thought of it,

And that caused all of us so much suffering.

And my dear mother-in-law Jean, a loving, intelligent, creative woman,

never wore trousers her whole life long,

Because a man must not wear a woman’s garment, nor a woman a man’s,

And to do so was an abomination.

And she always wore a hat to the Sunday Meeting,

Because a woman must cover her head, and a man not,

Because a man is the image and glory of God,

And a woman the glory of man.

And don’t call it “church” because that would be Papist.

I don’t think they’d like it here in Provincetown at all.

But I love it, and feel safe here.

And it was such a pleasure and such a joy to speak the words of Queen Jesus in this beautiful church of St Mary of the Harbour

And how hospitable and kind and gorgeous everybody was.

And my incredibly generous and gifted hosts, who were priests and artists and musicians and realtors

And so understood about property told me that everyone who comes here loves it too,

And so houses tend to get sold at upwards of $2 million.

But I couldn’t help but notice how fragile was this beauty,

Surrounded on three sides by the ocean, and the storms getting stronger and the sea levels rising

And more and more each winter the storms encroaching over the sea walls.

I know my Brethren in-laws might be tempted to gloat and say this is a just punishment of these pleasure-loving people’s wickedness,

And remind us of the parable of the man who built his house upon the sand.

I would say to them:

Don’t imagine this isn’t going to happen to you.

It is happening to all of us.

I’ve been haunted these days by a play I wrote long ago, way back in 1985,

A play called Losing Venice.

People understood Act One as a satire on the loss of Empire, and on the British inability to accept our Empire has gone.

The immense difficulty we had then, and still have now, to face the loss and make the collective creative effort to find a new identity for ourselves.

Looking back I see now that in that failure were the seeds of the disastrous collective decision that led to Brexit….

Act Two was a bit of a mystery to everyone, including us as we tried to rehearse it,

But now as I look back standing here in this America that is confronting the same pain and distress of losing its Empire,

And standing here as we all struggle to get to grips with the trauma and the possibilities arising rom the pandemic and the climate crisis,

These are the words that haunt me.

They’re spoken by a woman priest, who is me, to a poet called Quevedo, who is also me, and she says:

“Don’t begrudge us our little celebration.

You must allow us our little festivals.

You remember the story our teacher told.

Of the wise man who built his house upon

the rock and the foolish one who built

his on the sand?  We built ours on the mud.

We compromised.

And now we are sinking.

Year by year the tide water rises.

Already it has flooded our cellars;

Soon it will beat against our doors.

Then the waves will come and wash us

from the face of the earth.

The clouds gather.  The storm is rising.

And it will come.  Nothing can stop it.

We know.  We laugh when we can;

We live, as we must.

Fear eats away our hearts.  Will it spare us,

We wonder, will it spare or children?

Yet what can we do?  Tear down our city?

Label the stones and move them, stone by stone,

Rebuild them on the higher ground?

All our energy is taken up with living.

Besides, is there any mountain high enough

to hide us,

Is there depth enough in any cave?

I doubt it.  Crying is easy, Quevedo,

Laughter requires a little more strength.”

And thank you, dear Provincetown.

Thank you for your courage, your hospitality,

Your love of true freedom and your love of life.

Bless you.

Bless all of us as we move into the storm that is already beginning to engulf us.

May we all of us remember that we are all in this together,

All of us here to love and to be loved.

And that this storm which of course so terrifies us

Also carries within it the seeds of a better world.