I have an entire playlist of music that brings my queer self-abundant life! I started developing the latest iteration of this playlist during a unit of summer CPE. It was my driving music that helped put me in the spiritual care mood, and spiritually cared for me when I was on my way home.
Often, the first song I would hit play on was “If You Got a Problem” by Joy Oladokun. I needed the reminder from the chorus:
If you got a problem I got a problem too If you’re standin’ at the bottom I’ll reach out for you If you need someone to lean on Baby, I can be strong I will carry you through If you got a problem I got a problem too.
I imagine, at times, that this is Jesus singing through Joy Oladokun to the rest of us that if we got a problem, so does Jesus. Of the many, incredible things God has given us in this life, one of them is the gift that is Jesus Christ embodied in our community. That we can turn to each other and to Christ to lean on each other.
One of the biggest, joyfully queer parts of myself is how meaningful community support is in my life. I have learned so much about how important mutuality is in my relationships, personal and ministerial. Writers like bell hooks and Adrienne Maree Brown have formed my understanding that I won’t get very far in this life and call without you coming along with me, and the way we get there is radical love for each other. Love is an action word, and I love seeing us in action from a place of radical love.
For me, that love is incarnate in Jesus who came to build a joyfully, beloved, abundantly queer community starting with the disciples and Jesus’ early followers. We have the ability to reach out for each other, to cling to one another, because we got to know God in Jesus. Because Jesus knew what it was to be standin’ at the bottom, and the importance of carrying each other through.
I would not have survived seminary, candidacy, internship, or any ministry without the support of my Proclaim community, without the ways we carry each other through following Jesus, carrying out God’s ministry in the world. I thank for each member of Proclaim and the wider community of support that carries us through.
Mycah McNett (she/her) is a candidate for Word and Sacrament in the ELCA, and has just started searching for a First Call. Mycah has been active in Proclaim, representing the program on United Lutheran Seminary’s campus, and is currently the co-chair of the Board of Directors for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Mycah lives on Lenni Lenape land, also known as the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area with her spouse and three cats, Minnie, Clio, and Clem.
Mycah McNett (she/her) is a candidate for Word and Sacrament in the ELCA, and has just started searching for a First Call. Mycah has been active in Proclaim, representing the program on United Lutheran Seminary’s campus, and is currently the co-chair of the Board of Directors for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Mycah lives on Lenni Lenape land, also known as the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area with her spouse and three cats, Minnie, Clio, and Clem.