Spirit of the Rainbow has its origins in an LGBTQ spiritual group, seeking to create a space for itself in a world whose religions were largely hostile to us. Right across the spectrum, from traditional faiths to New Age spiritual groups, there was a sense that there was no place for us in the Divine order. The world, apparently, was made up of complementary halves, Ying and Yang, light and dark, positive and negative...and men and women, who were meant to find fulfilment in each other. “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”, the saying went. We were an “aberration”, an “abomination”, “against nature”. We were not meant to be.
Following our own star
Faced with this rejection, some sought to persuade their co-religionists that they were mistaken in their judgment. Passages in the Christian Bible, for example, that seemed to condemn homosexuality were questioned and a new light was thrown on their intended meaning. A few groups, like the Quakers, accepted us. Most did not.
What set Spirit of the Rainbow apart was that we made no attempt to ingratiate or justify ourselves to established faiths. As it says in Finding Jesus Ourselves:
“The clergy have tended historically to see themselves in the role of shepherds guiding their flock along the paths of righteousness as they saw it. In seeking to protect their flock from the ‘wolves’ of error and heresy, they have disempowered those who followed Christ by taking away that precious right to find our own unique path to our Creator.”
So we set off on our own path, developing a spirituality that made sense to us.
Spiritual creativity
This is where another stream of my spiritual story came into play. I had long felt I wanted to create rituals and ceremonies that had a personal resonance, rather than following a preordained format. This was intimately bound up with the issue of empowerment and discrimination. A story related in The Community of Christ gives an example where a Catholic priest had refused to give a parishioner Holy Communion because he was in a gay relationship.The issue for me was not just one of the Church’s LGBT+ policy. It was the idea that anyone should claim the spiritual authority to decide who should or shouldn’t have access to a ceremony Jesus shared for all humanity.
So, following my intuition, I developed a “Spiritual Celebration”, open to all in the spirit of unity and friendship. The ceremony was divided into three parts:
It was explained that these two symbols, the bread and the wine, were to be found in several religions and philosophies through the ages and each participant was free to give it the meaning that felt right for them. At the first meeting, no less than seven different faiths were present yet all seemed able to express their spirituality freely. They included a Catholic, who told us that though she regularly received Holy Communion at Church, this celebration had meant something special to her.
After the meal there was concluding affirmation:
“May we share the fruits of our life and the warmth of our hearts with stranger and friend alike.”
“Spirit in reality”
The great Buddhist spiritual teacher, T.D. Lakha Lama, once said, “spirituality is ‘spirit-in-reality’”. This brings us to the third stream that fed into the making of Spirit of the Rainbow: the light of our experience. Our own authentic moments of spiritual awakening are worth a thousand pages of philosophy, however wise and enlightened the author. Sometimes it’s when we listen to sublime music, or in the stillness of nature or even a deep crisis in our lives.
But this moment took place in the least likely place imaginable: in the toilets of a gay nightclub. I bumped into James, co-founder of Spirit of the Rainbow, one evening there and we began chatting. I’m not quite sure how it came about but gradually our discussion became deeper and intensely spiritual. It reached a point where I could feel the power of the Spirit take over, as can sometimes happen, and it felt we became more like messengers than authors of our own words. We became so engrossed in our dialogue that we forgot about where we were.
At first our conversation went quite unnoticed amongst the general hubbub. For apart from their ostensible function, the toilets were busy places socially and sexually. But we slowly became aware that the conversation and bustling activity around us was dying away as more and more people were stopping and starting to listen. Gradually this unlikely venue had become filled with an amazing spiritual energy. It lasted only a few minutes but it bore witness to the power of the Spirit and how important it is that it is brought into every area of life.
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More than a rainbow
These three elements – the choice to follow our own path, to create our own rituals and to value our own spiritual experiences - flowed into each other to create a spirit of empowerment, adventure and discovery at Spirit of the Rainbow. In my own exploration, I experienced a moment of awakening to the oneness of all creation, which is the basis of so much of our work. You will find more about this in our book, We Are One
New horizons opened. We went beyond being a specifically LGBT+ group. Yet the roots and the lesson remain: we were born out of a marginalised group facing rejection from the religious authorities, and with the guidance of the Spirit, we gave birth to something unique to share with everyone.
By Simenon Honoré
To discover more about the spiritual exploration of Jesus beyond any established dogma, you can read our book Finding Jesus Ourselves.
Or watch the video series Exploring Jesus Ourselves.
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