And every one a red balloon
It's all over, and I'm standing pretty
In the dust that was a city
I could find a souvenir
...Just to prove the world was here
Here it is, a red balloon
I think of you and let it go...
[Nena, 99 Red Balloons]
four weeks ago, my beloved and i made it official. [four weeks, i know. some might call it procrastination. i call it thoughtfulness.] what is 'it'? and what makes ‘it’ ‘official’? these are important questions. i'm not sure i have any answers or that the ones i do have are the ones i should have.
'it' is hard to pin down - marriage? civil union? sacrament? institution? well, the certificate said 'civil union,' but let's call it what it is. [minus 1000 plus federal privileges. yes, straight friends, no matter what you've heard, it is not just a matter of semantics. even in states where a rose is called a rose, queers are getting the shaft.] sacrament. institution. the state seems confused about this. we are not [or are we?].
when we went to apply for the certificate, they told us that only a judge or a credentialed clergy member was qualified to ‘officiate.’ [so clergy are ‘officiates’ for the state, but this is NOT a marriage – ‘it’ is a ‘civil’ union. huh.] almost immediately, i could feel the anxiety rising. this was not going to be easy. who do we know who is credentialed and willing to sign on the dotted line? [because I was NOT going to some dank office to have a stranger, unknown and possibly hostile, use some tired script to ‘make’ it official.]
you see, my beloved and i are Catholic. well, s/he is kind of Catholic, but we are both thoroughly sacramental. for us, covenant is sacred, desires true, true witness and performs protest, all of which we did last summer, at our real, real wedding, before ‘it’ became ‘official.’ what a contradiction, now that we have the ‘freedom’ to unionize[?], religious ‘freedom’ seems out of reach.
who do we know? who do we know? the state’s requirements for clerical officiates is flexible, to say the least. we ask our ritualists from last summer, Catholic lay ministers, and we are met with a resounding excuse – no credentials. at least one is honest in saying that her situation in witnessing for us last summer was less precarious [less ‘official’?]. now she is employed at a more conservative university. the stakes are higher. she explained this in a facebook message. i’ve yet to respond. what can i say? i understand the risk, but i’m sorry if i don’t ‘understand.’
well, true true witness emerges in the most unlikely places. we put a call out to a friend, a clergy member of the Black Coptic tradition. he returned the call within minutes with a resounding yes, more than that, an affirmation – ‘i am honored that you asked.’ now this is a ‘witness.’ we found out on the day of our ceremony that he risked censure in his church to be our witness, that this was a ‘theological moment’ for him. well, we are grateful!
so the three of us met at the white mansion to exchange vows, mine and my beloved’s, and ours with the witness to our covenant. on our way to meet our witness, we stopped to pick up the sacramental props, some tools to visually, materially ritualize this ‘theological moment.’ we stopped at the Dominick’s [grocery store] balloon counter. one balloon. ‘no honey, we need enough helium to carry the vows and knots.’ two ballons? no, three, a good, ‘theological’ number.
‘what color?’ asks the attendant. ‘red,’ i say, as ’99 Red Balloons’ begins playing in my head. i am vaguely aware of the political dimensions of this symbol, the red balloon. political is good. ‘this’ is sacrament. this is protest. the song, ’99 Luftballons’ [https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/11%2099%20Luftballons.m4a?w=84ae5b87] was written by the German pop group, Nena [later translated into English as ‘99 Red Balloons’]. Nena’s guitarist was inspired at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin during the cold war. balloons were released, and he imagined what might happen if they floated over the [in]famous Berlin Wall and the soviets mistook them for UFOs. ‘this’ could result in nuclear war.
the song tells the story of two children who release 99 toy, air balloons that float over the wall. mistaking the mass of balloons for something ominous, the soviet military launches an attack, resulting in nuclear war. when the dust clears, only one of the children lives and a single red balloon. this scenario is not unfamiliar for queers seeking public and ecclesial acknowledgement of covenant. our acts of joy are mistaken for something sinister and are met with rhetorical weaponry, loaded with fear.
so we left the grocery store with our symbols of protest, and we met our witness on Catholic institutional property, and the three of us, together, performed protest, performed sacrament. we ‘made’ our vows, and our witness invoked the trinity, Absolute Relation, to ‘officiate,’ to bless our union, for we are truly, truly blessed. and then we released our three red balloons, knotted together, bearing our vows and our hopes for survival in a violent world. [hope is a bag of bones, maybe two, maybe three, hanging from a single, toy balloon, a child’s whistle in the dark; I’m glad we bought three!] we, our witness, my beloved and I, watched as they floated up and away, and i held my breath for a moment, waiting for the bombs to rain down from the sky. i am still holding my [metaphorical] breath, waiting for ‘freedom,’ true true freedom.
