Beholding (Humanity)

78 days ago, on April 9, I wrote the following about what I had witnessed from participants in my contemplative photography courses:

It was beautiful as we would gather the next time and people would share about how they never realized how much _________ (insert color here) there was around them until they started looking specifically for that color.¹

As I returned to “colors” in this series, I experienced the same. I shared about how remarkable it was that the more I intended to find a specific color in a week, the more places I would see it. It wasn’t that the specific colors magically appeared in a given week but that I was attuned to that color.

But I also found over these last 78 days that I was actually more attuned to all of the colors and not just the one for each week. It was almost like, once I tuned into a new color, all the previous ones were with me as well. I’ll share some photos of moments like those in my next post.

Today, however, is not about the separate colors but instead how all these colors come together. These eleven colors weren’t simply eleven colors. Put them together, and you get something like this:

From the start of this color journey, I had this mosaic in my heart and mind. I knew the beauty of the Progress Pride Flag - the way that it pulled together not only the “traditional” colors of the pride flag but also the colors honoring and recognizing people of color and trans people as well. It was this flag that led to me choosing these eleven colors.

So on this last weekend of Pride month and the weekend that Cincinnati holds its Pride parade and festival, I share this as a gift to the LGBTQIA+ community. It is my way of sharing my art to recognize how you are beloved and you belong. With each of these photos that I received over these last 78 days, I have held you in my heart and mind, knowing the difficulty of this current time in this country and in many other places. I have seen the fear and the anger but I continue to see the resilience and courage that you have to continue to live with the simple mantra of “this is me.”

I do want to lift up one specific choice I made in the creation of this mosaic - the battered white heart on the left side. That is a cropped portion of a larger photo of a laminated, water damaged, and battered white heart that I saw hanging from a knot on a tree at Winton Lake. I chose that heart to be in the center of the white area because it represented something I have seen and heard from everyone who identifies as a part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

There is not one person who says that their life has been easy and without hardship in their journey of understanding who they are and seeking to live in that way. Each person has been battered and bruised in some ways (and that’s an understatement) but so many continue to hold on and continue to live proudly and fully. But in this there is also the acknowledgment that this is not a universal response. The suicide rate of LGBTQIA+ individuals is dramatically higher than many other populations - the hatred and rejection that people experience from those closest to them in their lives and from society as a whole leads many to end their lives.². There are also so many who did not choose to end their lives but instead their lives were ended by the actions of others. For those who survive and those who haven’t, I chose that heart.

For a long time in my life, I chose to not see you, to not acknowledge who you are, and to believe that there was something wrong or broken in you that needed to be changed. So I never truly saw you but instead looked at you the way I wanted to look at you. The way I wanted to. I am grateful for the ways that I have changed (and am still changing) in not trying to fit you into my way of seeing the world but instead trying to see the world through your experience. Thank you to each and every person who has helped me grow in this journey along the way.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

The image above is a lower-resolution version of this flag. If you want the full-resolution one, you can click here.

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A few notes about the creation of this mosaic:

• I had intended to use all the images from each week in each color in the flag. But the black, brown, cyan, pink, and white parts of the flag did not lend themselves to effectively being able to use the images. Instead, I chose to simply use two - the silhouette of Scout in the black stripe and the battered white heart. I explained the placement of the white heart above, but I also wanted to share about the choice of Scout

• I chose the one of Scout not only because, well....Scout. But I also chose it because I see the way that Scout loves every person she comes in contact with. She doesn’t look at someone and say, “nope, I don’t like you because of the color of your skin” or “I don’t like you because of who you love.” She simply says, I’m your friend, will you be mine? Why can’t we live that way as humans?

1. "Go back to the beginning, so I have..."

2. If you are wrestling with this or know someone who is, reach out - you are not alone. You can call 988 or reach out to organizations such as the Trevor Project or send me a message.