For Coming Out

It’s National Coming Out Day, and to mark the occasion I share a "blessing for authenticity," a prayer entitled "For Coming Out." This blessing/prayer is written by Meta Herrick Carlson and is from her 2020 book, Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life.

_____________

You dare to announce God’s delight
in the fullness of your healed self and
the ample image God already adores.
Alleluia!

I can see the heavens tearing open again,
love descending to illumine the truth and beauty
released from the long-hidden
chambers of your soul.

May the God of all gender and sexuality
surround you with bodies and voices
whose dance is protection, honor, and joy
for the space you are claiming out here.

– Meta Herrick Carlson

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Coming Out: An Act of Holiness
• Darren Hayes, Coming Out . . . Oh, and Time Travel
• Coming Out in Africa and the Middle East
• A Girl Named Sara: A “Person of the Resurrection”
• The Triumph of Love: An Easter Reflection
• It Shouldn’t Matter. Except It Does
• Ian McKellen’s Two Great Achievements: Playing Gandalf and Coming Out
• Lucy Jane Bledsoe: Quote of the Day – July 16, 2010
• The Raising of Lazarus and the Gay Experience of Coming Out
• Catherine Cavanagh: Quote of the Day – November 1, 2011
• Terrance Dean: Quote of the Day – July 7, 2012
• Something to Think About – September 6, 2013
• For National Coming Out Day 2013, Four Memorable Quotes
• David Whyte: “To Be Courageous is to Stay Close to the Way We Are Made”
• For National Coming Out Day
• Making the Connections . . . Then and Now
• Nakhane’s Hymn to Freedom
• Soul Deep

To read about my own experience of coming out, see:
• In the Footsteps of Spring: Introduction
• Part 1 – The Light Within
• Part 2 – Shards of Summer
• Part 3 – Intimate Soliloquies
• Part 4 – Coming Out
• Part 5 – No Stranger Am I

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.