Holy October
October has become a month that encourages us
to celebrate human potential. October challenges us to remember heroes so that
we might discover heroic qualities in ourselves. October even calls us to work
for justice where justice has been denied. October is a very special month!
There is a
national holiday in October: Columbus Day. However, we now know that it is
problematic to celebrate Christopher Columbus as the “discoverer” of North
America, since Leif Ericson reached our continent 500 years before Columbus
did, and the continent had been inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of
years. So, Johnny-Come-Lately Columbus was the second European to visit a long
inhabited continent. Worse than the inaccuracy of calling Columbus the
discoverer of North America, is Columbus’ own brutality. When Columbus landed
in the Bahamas he and his crew were treated well by the native residents.
Columbus rewarded their decency by seizing their land and enslaving them.
Now many of us call what has been known as Columbus Day,
“Indigenous Peoples Day” to honor the peaceful people Columbus first
encountered and soon betrayed and tormented. Indigenous Peoples Day reminds us to honor the peace lovers, to
value kindness and generosity, and to speak out against injustice.
October is also LBGT History Month where we celebrate heroes from
our beautiful and diverse Queer community. We honor such luminaries as lesbian
Jane Addams (co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and first
American woman Nobel Peace Prize winner), Miriam Ben-Shalom (discharged from
the Army in the 1970s for being gay but she won a long court battle which
resulted in her being reinstated in the 1980s), bisexual Grammy winner and Rock
& Roll Hall-of-Famer Clive Davis (who helped the careers of such superstars
as Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, and Carlos Santana), Arthur Dong (Academy
Award nominee, Peabody Award winner, gay film-maker who features gay and Asian
themes in his work), Orange Is the New
Black star Laverne Cox (transgender actress, producer, and activist), and Richard
Blanco (the youngest, first Latino, and first openly gay U.S. presidential
inauguration poet – Blanco read one of his poems at President Obama’s second
inauguration). We should be very proud of the many achievements that members of
our community have shared with the world!
October also gives us National Coming Out Day which encourages us
to leave behind closets of fear and shame and to live out loud as the gifted,
wonderful members of the human family we are. October 6, 1968 is the founding
date of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). October is Breast Cancer
Awareness Month, reminding us to honor those who battle cancer, to remember
those who lost their battle, and to wish and work for a cure. And sadly,
October is the month in 1998 when Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard died
from being attacked simply because he was gay.
October gives us a lot to think about, and opportunities to renew
our commitment to make a difference. So, I call October holy, because in many
ways it reminds us that we can be and ought to be angels of healing in our
world.
Rev. Dr. Durrell
Watkins is the Senior Minister of Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale.
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