A Space for Spirituality from a Queer Lens at Nashville Pride
When Rev. Dawn Bennett thinks of spirituality, she envisions a river. Everyone might be in their own vessel, be it a kayak, canoe, or otherwise, but they’re all traveling together. In the same way, that’s her hope for the Spirituality Night element of Nashville Pride’s June celebration, which typically draws a few hundred attendees.
Bennett, who founded her church The Table as a space centered on LGBTQIA+ experiences with faith, helps shepherd the event with Pastor Greg Bullard from Covenant of the Cross, an LGBTQ+ affirming, Christ-centered church. Bullard has been working on Spirituality Night since it started around 15 years ago, and Bennett started her work on adding to the community around four years ago. While her work as a reverend is in the Christian tradition, she says she is focused on bringing together all people who are seeking to discover meaning and sacredness in their own life, regardless of which vessel they choose to take into the water.
This year, on June 12, Bullard and Bennett will join a group of folks of various faiths at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville for an evening focused on building a community of believers of all kinds as part of Nashville Pride’s annual calendar of events.
The free event serves as a touch point and welcoming space for anyone of any faith looking for a loving community where they can practice their “sacredness,” she says, regardless of where they are or what power it is they’re praying to.
“I understand, I mean, not only am I part of the community, I have gay child, I have gay siblings, I’m gay; all the things,” she says. “So I get the brokenness because I receive it and I experience it myself. I think where I split hairs is I am not going to let religion-based bigotry rob me of a faith that can be life-giving for me. Now, notice I didn’t say religion, I said faith. And my biggest heartache is that for a lot of LGBTQ+ people, I’ve seen it scores of times where the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater instead of defending in defiance of that and saying, ‘you know what? You might be able to legislate laws against me, but you certainly cannot take away my meaning and value and I won’t let you have it.’”
That’s the type of empowerment Bennett sees as an outgrowth of coming together in respect.
“To me, our Spirituality Night is the crowning event of the year that allows us to reclaim our belovedness in a public way, in a unified way, and in a way that we can all come together as a chosen family,” she says.
Bennett says there can be a challenge as both a person who suffered trauma in religion and as a reverend in community with people who’ve come from all kinds of religious-based trauma, but who still want to be connected to a higher power.
“Pastoring The Table allows me to journey with people who have been traumatized by the Bible,” Bennett says. “And to me that is just a crime against humanity. And I don’t think for one moment that the God of the Bible is at all pleased with that. And so I spend a good amount of my time in conversation and in counseling with people whose lives have been turned inside out like a sock because of religion-based bigotry, and the ways in which denominationalism has allowed the Bible to be bastardized and weaponized.”
Bullard and Bennett spend a lot of time each year considering exactly how to open the doors to people a little more. Bennett says the work of bringing people together is one of the more important aspects of her pastoral work. The evening will include representations from traditions from Christian, Jewish, Pagan and Buddhist faiths as well as a mass choir that includes many faith backgrounds.
Nashville in Harmony, a musical arts organization, has been involved with Spirituality Night at Nashville Pride for a number of years, and they’re putting together the music for the mass choir this year.
“We all know the power of music,” Director of NIH Rev. Wesley King says. “We talk a lot about why we sing, what we’re feeling, and what our intentions are in our rehearsals. It can be such a magical moment. So many LGBTQIA+ people turn to music to feel seen and heard and we create space for that.”
The choir was created 20 years ago for people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, and their allies and began as a small chorus of 18 and has grown to an 110-adult chorus, a 25-person youth chorus and an 80-person marching band.
King, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, says that the organization is secular, but the members are made up of various backgrounds, including religious traditions. This is their first year using the mass choir format at Spirituality Night rather than delivering a performance. King says over the years, people have mentioned being intimidated by Nashville in Harmony’s numbers. The ritual of singing together is broad and spans across culture and faith traditions, which makes it a great fit for an event trying to bring those things together.
“Singing as a group creates community,” King says. “NIH was founded to use music to build that community and create social change specifically for LGBTQIA+ people in Middle Tennessee. While most choirs are solely focused on performance, that is only one of our many objectives.”
And while their talented group will make up the core of the choir, he thought it might envelop folks more into community if everyone just sang as one big group. Instead of feeling more like a competitive singing event, King envisioned it as more of a community-focused endeavor.
“I tried to choose songs that speak to values rather than specific theology or beliefs so that it’s applicable to people of various backgrounds,” King says. “And then when we do come to a line that makes a theological statement, we use language that makes sense for us. For example, when we sing that ‘we are a child of God,’ some will say ‘God,’ or some may say ‘Love’ instead. We’re using different language, but we’re all saying the same thing: ‘we matter.'”
Bennett says the effect of bringing people together for this one night has been simple but powerful for her. The best development has been the opportunity to learn, to talk to other people and to understand that when people start talking, they find that there’s a common and beloved sacredness, and that it’s remarkable how alike people are.
“When we are isolated, we all believe we have it so bad or we can’t see outside of ourselves,” Bennet says. “We might believe we’re the only ones like this. We believe nobody understands us. And that is the work of the enemy, the devil, the negative principality, whatever you want to call it. Religious traditions have different names for it, but that work of separation and isolation, that’s where discrimination does its best work. And so to stand in defiance of that and rather pick up this torch of solidarity that says, no, we might be different, but let’s work together to build bridges of solidarity where we find ourselves together and in harmony with one another.”
Nashville Pride Schedule
Nashville Pride Turnabout
See Nashville Pride community members dressed in drag and performing to support Nashville Pride.
Play Dance Bar
Friday, June 7, 2024
7-10 p.m.
Nashville Pride Pageant
Compete to be crowned Ms. / Mr. / Mx. Nashville Pride at this year’s Nashville Pride Pageant.
Play Dance Bar
Sunday, June 9, 2024
7-10 p.m.
Spirituality Night
Join people of all faith traditions in a night of celebration and sacredness.
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Nashville Pride Kick Off
This is an evening of live entertainment, a cash bar and a chance to celebrate Nashville Pride the launch of the weekend festival.
Play Dance Bar
Thursday, June 20, 2024
6-9 p.m.
Nashville Pride Parade
The parade takes place on Broadway between 8th Avenue and 2nd Ave and is free to the public.
Downtown Nashville
Saturday June 22, 2024
10 a.m.