FFs #40: Hot, Wet, and Glitter Blessed
Stories of Greenville Black Pride 2025
Ok, So Maybe This Break Thing is Overrated
I can’t help myself.
If you were here last week, you know I had this plan to open up some time by including an excerpt from one of last year’s posts, rather than write a new one. That didn’t go so well this week. But that’s okay. I had fun writing some new things. Hope you’ll enjoy it!
Greenville Black Pride 2025
First it was in the 90s. Then there was a torrential downpour mid-afternoon. After the rain, it was cooler, but time to go. In retrospect, I was probably near to having a heat stroke and/or severe dehydration. And yet, it was fun!
We (the Greenville SC congregation of Community of Christ) handed out tons of bookmarks, from the ones saying “You Are Loved” to ones with an image of NCC-1701D that advertised
’s Zoom-based Star Trek spiritual discussion group to my own bookmarks advertising my recently published book: The Spiritual Life Writing Workbook.People were friendly and fun to watch. Some were interested in our message. More were not. But all were smiling. Even during the rain.
The morning parade was energizing. Throughout the day, we made connections with other churches and non-profits. Not too much different from our first experience in 2023. Except for the booth next door.
The Joy of Glitter
Greenville’s Unitarian Universalist Church was the next booth up the hill from us. And the pastor was doing something unique. She was offering Glitter Blessings. In case you’ve never seen such (I had not), here’s the gist.
She (the pastor) had a tiny eye-shadow-type tray with some glittery goop in it. I got to watch her mix up a new batch. She poured in a little bit of fine glitter—3 different colors—from tiny cellophane bags. Then she added a dollop of hand sanitizer gel and mixed it all up with her pinky finger.
For the blessing, she gave you the option of where you wanted your glitter. I had her put some on my cheek, like a face painting. Just a finger-tip-worth dotted on my face.
Then she slowly read a blessing, making frequent eye contact as she told me things like You are Loved, You are Worthy, You are Gifted. I don’t remember exactly. But it was about 9 or 10 lines of things like that.
It was nice. It was memorable. And now I’m looking for the opportunity to do likewise.
Got Any Pride Tips?
Let me know what neat ideas you’ve discovered by attending Pride or similar events.
Excerpt: The Day I Stopped Slamming the Door on Jehovah's Witnesses
And How That Journey Shaped My Approach to Being at PRIDE
It’s always fun in an oh-yeah-I’ve-been-there sort-of way to see someone younger go through a growth process you’ve been through yourself. That’s how it felt to me earlier this week when I read an article by
entitled: Not Sure if I'm Proud of What I Did at PRIDE Three Years Ago.Colby did an awesome job of keeping the suspense going about what it was that he did. But that’s not my point here. In fact, I need to issue a spoiler alert, just to be safe. I’m going to tell you what it was he did, and then I’ll tell you my story about a similar journey and what I learned. If you like suspense, go read his story now and come back. I’ll wait….
[Click here to read the rest.]
Onward from rainbows to red-white-and-blue. Happy Fourth!
If you know someone who needs to hear what I have to say, please share or restack.
Thanks for reading Spiritual Life Storyteller’s Fractal Fridays newsletter! Subscribe for free to get the latest stories and updates.
Getting too much email? Click here to update your preferences. If you select only Fractal Fridays, you’ll get a once-a-week email that will include excerpts of anything else I’ve written.