When our church began worship this morning, I sent a text message to be shared with the congregation. I typed it out with my index finger while I was marching. The text read, “Tell them the march is hard for the feet but soft for the heart. Lots of drivers are honking for love this morning.” By the time worship began at 10 am, our day had gotten off to a wonderful start, but it was not without some anxiety. That morning The Daily News of Longview had published a story about our march. As we marched our way out of Longview, a number of people would know who we were. The question in my mind was “how would they respond?”
While a few people neglected to raise four of their five fingers when they waved, the overwhelming response was positive. A member of our church’s youth group counted 25 affirmative honks during the course of a day on which we encountered a relatively small amount of traffic. After we left Longview and Lexington, we spent the rest of our time in rural areas passing farms.
Even though our interactions with the public were limited today, two interactions stand out as moments that softened the heart. In one instance, a woman came out of her trailer home to ask us who we were. Upon hearing, she said, “I thought that’s who you were. Thanks!” She then proceeded to tell us that she had a son, a grandson, a granddaughter, and a nephew who were all either gay or lesbian.
In perhaps my favorite moment in the march thus far, we were in the middle of farm country when I saw two men in the distance standing by the road at the end of a driveway. They appeared to be about 70 years of age. It looked like they were waiting for the mailman to come, even though that struck me as an odd thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. When we reached them, one of them asked if we were the marchers, and we responded that we were indeed the ones marching for marriage equality. With a sincere and grateful smile, he reached out to shake my hand as he thanked us for marching. These two men had been together for thirty years. Since reading the newspaper that morning, they had been waiting for us. (Hopefully, they were not outdoors for all those hours.)
These two men were not satisfied with simply thanking myself and my walking partner as we led the pack. They waited until all of our walkers passed by. This included two walkers who were an hour behind us as a result of seeing a car crash and staying to serve as witnesses for the police.
In talking with these two men, I can still remember the happy glint in the eyes of one of them as I reported that our youth had thus far counted 20 honks. This was truly a day that softened my heart with each honk for love.
