Last night I violated a 30 years old principle of mine: Never to enter a church when there was a service in progress. Why is a long story that I might tell in my blog My Life So Far.The reason I did it was that I got invited by a friend who is one of the organizers behind "Regnbågsmässan", The Rainbow Mass, a monthly event at "Sofia kyrkan", The Sofia Church, in the part of Stockholm called "Söder". It's beautifully situated high up on "Vita Bergen" I was born just a few blocks from it so if I had been baptised this is the church where it would have happened. I hope to blog more about the concept of "Regnbågsmässan" and the people behind it later.
The theme of last night's mass was to celebrate that the Swedish church have decided to perform same sex marriage ceremonies. It started at 4 pm with opportunities to talk with church officials about weddings, I missed that part as I was buzzy trying to install the latest SuSE to a USB stick. But I was in time for the mass that begun at 6 pm. I was given a book of hymns and took a seat towards the back, near the aisle. At first glance it wasn't any different from the churches I was forced to attend when in school. Then I noticed the garland in rainbow colours hanging from the pulpit. The church slowly filled with people. Well, filled is maybe not the right word. It was about half full when the mass started, which apparently is more than at an ordinary mass. I looked around to get an idea of what kind of folks came to this mass, I tried to not be too obvious less they think I was checking them out for other reasons than reporting in this blog post. :-)
I saw some faces that I recognised, among them the guy I usually buy my tobacco from. The audience was about evenly distributed as to gender, male and female with a sprinkling of trans folks. The age was slightly higher than you usually find at a LGBTQ event. It might not be surprising to you that I checked out the women more than the men. :-) Many of the ladies was of the short haired butch style lesbian stereotype, other more "ordinary" and some decidedly femme.
The mass started with a song performed by Rainbow Gospel Followed by a talk by someone who's name I missed. I don't think he was a priest as he was dressed in an ordinary suite. It was a bit hard to hear what he was saying due to the echo in the church. I didn't catch all but the gist of it seemed to be that we should be grateful for the decision by the church to perform same sex marriage but also be careful not to alienate those that had opposed it. A middle of the road path I have no sympathy with. Next another song by the choir after which the priest, Malin, entered the stage. Malin is a beautiful brunette. I'd say sexy but can you do that about a priest? She was wearing a sparkly cassock (?) in a rainbow pattern. The way Malin spoke about love and marriage was more in line with my own thoughts on the subject. After that it was time for us all to sing a hymn. I'm not a Christian and also I didn't know the tune so I was mostly quiet. After that Malin talked about the parable of the ten maidens and the oil lamps. I'm not very familiar with Christian mythology but the conclusion was that she believed that Jesus would welcome everyone to the party, whether they had oil in the lamps or not, whether they were straight or gay. All in all I felt that what she said was something I could agree with.
Next up was Helene Hammarlund , who sang a beautiful Swedish folk song from the balcony. If my back wasn't hurting so by this time it might have caused some tears to trickle down my face. Then came the part that was strangest to me, the communion. I've never been to one of these before and it wasn't so bad as I feared. Malin said some things over the bread and the wine and then there was general hugging and whishings of God bless and the like. A beautiful black haired woman touched my shoulder and said May God's love be with you. After this those who were so inclined cued up to get a biscuit dipped in wine. One last hymn and it was over.
I went out for a much needed cig and then joined the cue for wedding cake and coffee. I didn't stay long after that but had some interesting conversations with some likewise interesting people. All in all it was a good experience this my first voluntary visit to a Christian function. And there is a good chance I'll go to the next mass Dec 12.
Hugs, kisses, love and lashes until next time
Caisa
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