Two weeks ago, I attended the opening ceremony of the 3rd annual (trans)feminist bike ride "Clitoral Mass," a pun off the more male-dominated "Critical Mass" bike rides in Los Angeles. It was a powerful event! More pertinently, it was a spiritual blessing, both literally and figuratively.
When I arrived, I found a large circle of flowers with two entrances. Before the 300 womyn and womyn-identified persons took off on the afternoon ride, the group had the opportunity to enter into the circle and receive a blessing of incense. Using indigenous religious resources, there was a blessing of the four elements and the four directions that give people life as well as the earth from which we all come. After a few minutes of instructions, stretching, and yoga, the group headed out for an afternoon of riding solidarity.
With a sophisticated intersectional analysis of colonialism, (hetero)sexism, and racism, the organizing body, the Boyle Heights-based Ovarian Psycos uses cycling as a method of empowerment and to affirm historically oppressed bodies of especially womyn of color, whose bodies are still threatened by violence today (including LA's car culture). Male-identified persons such as myself were rightly not allowed to join the ride as this was to be a safe-space for womyn. Even so, I still felt welcome (especially since I was able to participate in the opening ceremony).
Those of us who seek to follow Jesus could learn much from their indecent wisdom. While any explicit imagery from the way of Jesus was avoided, I saw the gathering as an example of implicit churching. I heard good news about the dignity and value of womyn of color and the need for safe spaces; I saw a fellowship forming across race, class, and orientation lines that supported each other; and the ride itself was an act of service by resisting the sin of carbon pollution and its threat to life on our planet through alternative transportation. Some might have even called it an indecent Mass, incarnating a liberating Sophia-Christ in LA.
Those of us who still want to claim the name of Jesus in our lives should ourselves find ways to integrate activism, spirituality, fun, and indecency. The Clitoral Mass ride embodied a spiritual praxis of good news, community, and service, without the cumbersome flailings of anxious institutions. For as following Jesus changes, isn't that what we are to become: a spiritual social movement?
Discerning,
Timothy Murphy
Executive Director