Shared Ministry: The Arrangement

News –

In ‘78, the pride flag wore eight colors.

Hot pink for sex. Red for life. Orange for healing. Yellow for sunlight. Green for nature. Turquoise for magic. Indigo for serenity. Violet for spirit.

A full prism of queer becoming.

But hot pink was costly to print—so it disappeared. Magic and serenity folded into one. The flag was simplified. Streamlined. Made easier to wave. Easier to sell.

We remembered the shape. Forgot the reason.

Some lives vanished from the flag before they vanished from the world. Or maybe it was the other way around.

History, like the market, has a favorite palette. And a habit of tidying.

Sylvia and Marsha were pushed to the edges of the story. Black and brown stripes came later, like a postscript. Trans lives still marked optional, or worse—unreadable.

And yet, those same lives danced. Marched. Fought. Preached. Raised children. Made art. Buried their dead. Carried us.

There’s a kind of violence that doesn’t come howling with slurs—
It arrives with a clipboard and a design brief.

It prefers symmetry. Order. The neat line. The simple story. The easy sell.

And we absorb it.

Just inside the pixelated yellow Grindr icon, the identities we thin to follow its limits to promises of pleasure. The white twinks we are taught to think most desirable—at least they’re not Black. The Black boys—as long as they don’t get too Black. Asians—admitted, if there’s money and the accent flatlines. Gay men—if they’re butch. Lesbians—if they’re not. Trans folks—yes, but only if they pass. Only if they stay easy to love. In the ballots we cast. In the stories we rehearse—and those we skip. The friends we make. The excuses we make instead.

It’s a choreography of disappearance. 

At each turn, a stripe lost. A petal plucked. A story edited for clarity.

What defines a flower is never a single petal.
It’s how they hold each other. It’s the arrangement.

But we forget.
We choose. We neaten. We pull.

They love me…
They love me not.

Until what was once a blossom is now only absence.
And we call it beautiful because it doesn’t make demands.

Still—some resist the pull.

I’m thinking of our Visual Arts Committee. I’m thinking of Bette, Kierstin, Marjie, Nikki, Martha, Karen when they step into our sanctuary before the lights come on. Their task–to curate flower arrangements for each week’s theme and the truths of the day do much to decorate our space. If you let them speak to you, they will also declare.

They match less for symmetry; more for meaning.

Some flowers pull more water. Some wilt sooner. Some lean toward the light like it’s calling their name.

In worship, the flowers preach too, of dazzling difference, balanced, amplified, called together on purpose.

And what they say is this: Community is not a clean line. Not a brand palette. Not a performance. It is held tension that never collapses into sameness. It is the sacred art of making room for what resists control.

This is our shared ministry.

To become florists of each other’s lives.
To recognize the reach, the weight, the waterline of every soul we hold.
To stop pretending diversity is a checkbox.
To start moving like we’re kin.

We tell the truth—not just of who we are, but of what we still struggle to hold.

We don’t just widen the circle once. We stay with it. We widen again. And again.

This is how we move. And when we move like this—the movement moves.

What truth are you still trimming?

What color have you grown afraid to hold?

What part of you is still waiting for its place in the collection?

When the tension rises, will you stay in the circle?

When the circle stretches, will you help hold it open?

And if something sacred starts to bloom—
will you make room?

Will you make room?