Dear, Reader,

As a kid, I couldn't wait to go to summer church camp. The crafts, the pool, the campfires, the fun with old friends, the worship music. I loved it so much, I eventually became a camp counselor myself. Many of our morning wake-up calls involved some sort of 90s Christian music playing over the loud speakers. So many favorites - Newsboys, D.C.Talk. Avalon’s “Testify to Love” ranked pretty highly too.

What I didn’t know then but have since learned this week is that one of the original Avalon members (Michael Passons) was kicked out of the band in 2003 for being gay. His story came out somewhat unintentionally which led to him partnering with Ty Herndon, an openly gay country music singer, to re-release “Testify to Love.”

In case you haven’t heard it yet, here it is, but just WOW.

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It’s hard to express how it felt to listen to it with a new lens. It felt like a reclamation of love - inclusive, unconditional. Love that’s not based on fear of hell or whether you followed all the rules. Love that doesn’t give you impossible ultimatums. Love that doesn’t reject who you are at your core.

When you leave a belief system like that, you don’t just leave behind the harmful things. You lose an entire ecosystem - the music, the summers, the sense of belonging, even the sense of certainty. It’s a legit loss.

But what if you don't have to leave the beauty behind just because the system that housed it got it wrong? The love in that song was always bigger than how I was taught to view it. Whether you believe in God, Jesus, a higher power, the Universe, Mother Earth, or nothing at all, this kind of love belongs to everyone. Reveling in this moment, not just for myself but especially for any of my LGBTQ+ friends and family who’ve ever been told that they’re not worthy. Love wins.

With you in the unraveling,

~Kara

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