Finding Peace at Hobby Lobby as a Queer Feminist
It’s Been a Journey Y’all
Listen to “Finding Peace at Hobby Lobby as a Queer Feminist.”
For most of the year, I’m often in the dark when I’m at home — the sun has barely risen when I leave for work, and the moon is high when I return — so every other weekend, I stop by my local Hobby Lobby to buy a pack of tiny unscented candles. They fit perfectly in the decorative candle holders sitting in front of my TV, and unlike scented candles, they don’t give me headaches. I could possibly find them cheaper elsewhere, but I’ve decided their glow is well worth the $7.99 I shell out bimonthly.
Perhaps more importantly, something lovely happens to me when I enter a Hobby Lobby: my heart lightens, my focused gait slows to a relaxed stroll, and I find myself grinning as I take it all in — the seasonal decor, the stunning fake florals, the cozy scents of crafting, homemaking, and holidays; even the instrumental hymns playing over loudspeakers bring me joy. It feels like home; it feels like the better parts of my childhood. It feels like peace.
I know queer feminists who refuse to financially support Hobby Lobby, and I get it. Finding peace at Hobby Lobby as a queer feminist with religious trauma has been a journey for me; and in some ways, it’s an ongoing one. I don’t agree with or support the company’s stance against covering certain forms of birth control for employees. I don’t agree with or support the company’s treatment of Meggan Sommerville, a transgender woman and employee of Hobby Lobby who successfully sued the company for prohibiting her from using the women’s bathroom while at work. I also think it’s silly that Hobby Lobby doesn’t sell Halloween decorations.
When I explore the store’s aisles, I’m acutely aware that I’m not Hobby Lobby’s target customer. But I’m also acutely aware that I do my shopping in the Bible Belt, the Lower Mississippi Delta Region, the Ozarks. In this area, I’m not confident that I’m any store's target customer unless that store is queer-owned and operated; and while I do happily spend my money in those shops whenever I’m able to, they’re rare around here.
If not shopping at Hobby Lobby is your metaphorical line in the sand — dear reader or listener — I understand and support that decision. Many consumers have metaphorical lines in the sand, myself included. I’ll never eat meat again unless multiple doctors tell me it’s necessary for my health and well-being. I’m finished watching movies starring Johnny Depp. I avoid ordering items from Amazon unless I can’t find them anywhere else. I’ve never purchased anything from Shein or Temu. I stopped listening to Drake’s music when he collaborated with Chris Brown in 2019. But I don’t see myself boycotting Hobby Lobby anytime soon, or possibly ever, because I find peace and joy there, and peace and joy can be hard to come by these days. After all, an unelected billionaire is currently running the show in D.C., the constitutional right to abortion is quickly becoming a distant memory, and trans folks are facing more persecution all the time.
All of that said, I won’t pretend my personal brand of pettiness isn’t fed when I casually browse the Christian craft store wearing a Bible Belt Queers top and pentacle earrings. There’s something so deliciously disobedient about finding happiness in a store that — not unlike my conservative region and my increasingly conservative nation — is seemingly designed to spit me out. One could argue this is mental gymnastics masquerading as defiance, but I disagree. As a queer, feminist, agnostic woman living in the rural Bible Belt, finding refuge where others might find hostile territory is — for me, anyway — the difference between surviving and thriving.
So, for now, I’ll continue to smile and nod when Hobby Lobby workers tell me to “have a blessed day,” and then I’ll go home, light my candles, cuddle my kitties, watch my shows, and keep joyously living my happy little queer life in the woods, finding joy and peace wherever and whenever I can.