 Come let us go before the DJ booth in prayer God who loves all of creation not just the divisible cell and the batting eye The wind think the thin thing and the webfoot but the creative the idea the notion the invention the advance The poem the recipe the new way the revision the retelling the costume change the recast the trillion and the radiant cut God who loves to spin all things loves the decision to get up and loves the decision to demand rest Start again write the course move the cursor new secondary source all of creation is all of creation God who is commotion and loves us for the commotion we cause the stirring up and the troubling our bodies create by our mere Appearance God you are epic in creation star stuff and core stuff you are by heart and provisional and Lines never spoken creation all of it and we love you today for God God We thank you for this disco service today, and we ask that you dance with us We invite you to this sanctuary turn dance floor We invite you to do what you have always done move on our behalf move to us move with us and move for us Show us that you are a part of the divine dance Bless the speakers singers poets preachers directors producers sound decisions for the sound team and make light the load for those on the lights and Dancers here today God bless them all God bless the DJs for you are the original recording and we know that you make yourself available for this the remix Have your way in this service tonight God on this dance floor floor me my heart is spent a spun with every muscle revelation that you reveal to my body in this Music called disco happy dance with me God rain dance with me God bring up my secret sweat Draw the baby powder line and dare the devil to cross it God You said that dance is good and we who are your children are good God Thank you because even in a time of war this is a prayer for a world that needs a dance floor that feels like an altar from prospect to Lake Merritt From Brookhaven to Griffith from Lincoln to Jackson Park out of bushes shame and branches shame Where our love has learned to creep like that vining plant break open the circles jerk hold on to other limbs attached To hands and arms and eyes and souls Unnoose and free yourself some new strange fruit unafraid of sun shadow sex. Let the children come Let the sons come and come fathers and fathers fathers hear their worst fears your Hynne pecked voices cracking with laughter you their chipped heirloom China broke let them hear your pitch perfect ear ringing slap high laughs Avenger mother's covered giggle tongues laugh at the men who won the bread and beat the sissy out of the boys backs Let the sons come Let the snap queens come let your good girlfriends and your good good girlfriends see you snap Snap because the universe needs reminding sometimes that you are its song and its progeny your fingers finding place in it This music snap to mark where you enter snap to rub your memories stubby baby fingers together Make a new noise snap your fathers Please snap to turn your fingers into fists snap because you have not been the same sense But you vow to be Let the children come Let the children walk the nobody ever stepped on your toes walk the feet unhurt walk the dance floor is alter walk walk Children loose the bellies untangle the T sales tangle in our bloodstream Don't let this diagnosis be the partner that leads lose your burden come children come let the children sing Choke up the screams you have swallowed all your lives Spit out every word gospel every word lullaby every word aria fight for the vocal cords tired of Singing at our lovers funerals fight for this dirt grabbing hold and grappling our voices There is lullaby yet left let the children come let the children sing Some new words for some colored boys death song come to life Let the children come let the children come let the children come so so my project was on Sylvester who's Who who's the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his passing would be this month? in 2018 so he's been going 30 years and So I'm 52 so he Passed on I was too And and as much as I loved going into the archives and having his body presented to me With white gloves, you know and me exhuming the body of Sylvester You know, and I was there on World AIDS Day It was it was sacred It felt right that these black gay hands were in this body and that we were having a conversation that this world would not allow us to have and I really wanted to invoke his name In this project because I knew this anniversary was coming up. So thank you for letting me Call down one of my gay sisters I'm gonna just read a couple more This is called 52 the reasons too many Then I love you and no rhyme nor reason makes no sense now As I am coming into myself and you are smelling yours. I have hung the sign out. I'm open Means knock means ring means turn means enter means shoes on or off is not the test Comfortable and if you are is You move my couch cushion to the small of your back move my coffee table with your feet so your legs can stretch You don't try to outshine my curios you Trinket acting like you a precious moment or something. I'm thinking this Negro really made himself at home His channel don't change when I point the remote at him He stay on the news and he only talked during the commercial the reasons global warming the war I am ready to apologize for everything I did with everybody I did it with before he showed up and he stopped me cold Say the risk is not what he can catch but what he might miss This Negro really made himself at home and if it's all right mr. Marvin I would like to come back and sit with you in your parlor. I think I might be good company for you more importantly I like you Marvin Always did and if you let me yes my shoes off don't have to mean I'm staying just mean I want to get comfortable with you I bring my own whiskey. I got my crosswords or I can hold your yarn while you're knitting. Would that be okay, mr. Marvin? the reasons I'm 52 The house plants died too many But I'm open and you take me up on it. You don't choose the table or the bed couch TV Make me start thinking about new curtains Shears summer windows Juleps fishing trips tea cakes Process theology luminous things cherry coke seven-day candles CPAP machines and yes This two-handed tonk game we plan without keeping score just might go on forever if we let it and finally No, not that sorry that would have taken this over So in the name of the father the mother the daughter the son the three-spirit in the ones who are both and neither in the name of art and culture and making and viewing in the name of sweat and love and Sylvester and all the disco Saints in the great cloud of witnesses and wetnesses Therefore since we have so great a nightclub and smoke machine of witnesses surrounding us Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin Which so easily entangles us the cult of respectability and let us run with endurance the race that is said before us Let us dance fixing our eyes on the DJ and our hips to the floor Let us lose our mind so that we can see miss Jesus on the dance floor The only one who can wear linen and not get any drinks spilled on her Jesus the author and perfecter of faith the DJ and the spinner Disco twirler and the leaper Jesus the Vogue Queen who for the joy who for the joy Who for the joy set before Jesus himself endured the closing of cables Loretta's the garage the generator and Estonache despising the shame and has set down on the right corner speaker at the throne of God and is ready to go in on our behalf Finally beloved I pray that the word that went forth out of their mouths on that dance floor from that bar stool Like it will for all the children in all the tea rooms at all the tea dances under that lopsided Wigan under that anointing through that first testosterone shot and through that first Estrogen injection through the first inkling that you like trans girls that you really like men that you like non-binary folks That you are attracted to gender non-conforming folks that you want to dance and be held During that diagnosis in that prayer through that cry on that hope on that dope while wearing that and lip-syncing that I Pray that the word in the read and the air kiss will not return unto us void But is accomplishing that which God please landing on the still sweat and tear soaked cheeks and lips of its intended and yes God it is prospering in this thing in this body in this wrecked and wracked thing Where too they sent me and spent me all air kisses I pray one day children all of your gifts all of your Unconventional and new and old things that you were called to do all of your inherent wisdoms all from the directions from which The diasporas of your hips spin We will be welcome and expected in places that you could never have imagined one day soon a new song is coming And you will be amplified in love one day you will be both ahead of your time and on time one day You all God's children LGBTQI and not would know that whatever and whoever we have outlived that we have We will enter no room and no dance floor without acknowledging the room that they left for us Ashay amen and honey boom