KLF

Tonight’s Trans Affirming Group was smaller than usual. 

Some folx reached out and said they are shuttering in place for now, but for those who showed up tonight they were seeking social connections realizing that over the next day’s/weeks things will be different…our world, our nation, our state is moving into unchartered territory.

I am a health care provider, and in times of crisis mental health matters. 

If you have been in my space and in my office you know I have plenty of room to honor a six foot distance; and I have been paying attention to different insurance protocols being updated almost daily associated with making telehealth at this time a more viable option for those in need.

My plan is to keep seeing folx in my office and setting up telehealth where/when possible and preferred.

This isn’t my first pandemic; and it isn’t the first time we faced a virus that we didn’t appreciate by putting a plan in place to help those at risk and those who contracted the virus.

Today most folx do not remember, nor have experience with a virus we didn’t understand and hadn’t yet figured out how to treat.  Today’s COVID-19 holds a great deal of fear and misinformation…misinformation that was unfortunately spread for too long at the highest levels of leadership. 

Yesterday we finally saw a sea change by our highest elected and appointed leadership for the sake of our community’s health and well-being.

I remember another day and time when elected leaders in the highest office looked past a vulnerable community in great need facing an uncertain virus, and in times of crisis mental health matters.

During group tonight, I referenced to those present that through the highs and lows of what we are about to face, I will remain available to help my clients weather this experience.

A group member said, “Forgive me, but when you say, ‘highs and lows’ what highs are you referencing?”

“Great Question!”

During the height of the AIDS Pandemic there were plenty of lows.  Each day my day would start at looking at the list of who died the night before and the list of who was admitted to the hospital.  Throughout the course of the day we would have to update both lists.

I shared in group, “One thing holds true across all faiths and philosophies and that is our human condition leans toward compassion…to give it and receive it…the highs are about helping people move beyond their fear to reach out for help and reach out to help one another.  This is what makes us human.”

On some of the worst days during the AIDS Pandemic, I experienced some of the best of humanity evidenced in how we cared for one another as outcast queers, addicts (active/in recovery), impoverished and non-white folx…my goal today is to support the clients I serve to discover more fully their true beautiful self and be their best person living their best truth even and especially in this uncertain time.

My prayer is that this time around we care for the “least of these” far better than we did at the tipping point of another pandemic from decades ago…and so I close with this last thought.

One of the greatest gifts I received from my grandmother was to always look toward and tenaciously hold on to hope.  In uncertain and unfamiliar times, holding to hope remains a powerful weapon against fear.

In times of crisis…during this time of COVID-19 our mental health matters; and so I strive to be a hope care provider!

I remain available to serve my clients and my community.

Readings for Today’s Reflection:

Hebrew Reading: Genesis 1:26-28a
Christian Reading: Matthew 19:12-15
Contemporary Reading: Excerpt from “Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story” by Jacob Tobia

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Sermon delivered on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at Church on The Main located in Middletown, DE

Paul wrote to the Church of Galatia, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

He didn’t write male or female, but rather male and female…such a subtle distinction, yet a freeing acknowledgement of the diversity found within God’s Creation.

In fact, a 3^rd Century Jewish text reads:

“An androgynous, who presents both male and female physical traits, is in some ways like men and in some ways like women. In some ways, they are like both men and women, and in other ways, like neither men nor women.” (Bikkurim 4:1)[i]

Rabbi David Meyer, from the article What the Torah Teaches Us About Gender Fluidity & Transgender Justice notes,

Our Jewish legal tradition identifies no fewer than six distinct “genders”, certainly assuming as normative the male and female, but including designations as well which we now refer to as “intersex” identities.[ii]

Many Queer Folx have asked me about the too oft quoted “clobber passages” in scripture to which I prefer to redirect people to too oft ignored liberating passages.  Such as our First Creation Story quoted by Paul to the Galatians:

“Let us make humankind in our image…So God created the earth-being in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them.”

In the beginning we have the plurality of God “in our image”.

In the beginning we have the plurality of earth being “after God’s likeness.”

In the beginning we are seen by God as very good.

God created all of us; and the all of us is far more diverse than the social construction of a gender binary myth; and according to Jewish tradition, at least six gender identities!

Paul helps us re-frame our first creation story because Jesus, himself, sees the expansive many gendered creation of God as very good, too.

Jesus said to his disciples,

not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given… there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs, who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  Let anyone accept this who can.

Not everyone can accept this teaching…let anyone accept this who can.  Those are very intriguing bookends Jesus places around this passage.  What was Jesus trying to say to LGBTQ+ folx and our allies today?  How was Jesus trying to embolden us for social justice work?

Virginia Mollenkott, author of the book Omnigender: A Trans-Religious Approach says the following about this Jesus’ teaching:  Jesus’ words about eunuch in Matthew 19:12 reveal an accepting, respectful attitude that ought to be the norm for the modern church.[iii]

And author Michelle Dee entitled “Jesus and Male and Female” wrote:  In Jesus’s day, there was no [gender affirmation surgery], though there were transgender people, naturally…Jesus acknowledges sexual diversity and did not judge it.[iv]

*  *  *

20 years ago as a senior at Columbia Theological Seminary—a PC(USA) school—I engaged in the required rite of passage by preaching my Senior Sermon.

I pulled the “Let the Little Kiddos Come Unto Me” narrative of Jesus rebuking the disciples from the Gospel of Mark 10:13-16.  It is recorded a little different…I was drawn to the closing verse of this version: Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” (v.16)

It was a message to my seminary community that the Church is to welcome, as Jesus did, all the little children—all ethnicities, all abilities, all incomes, and all sexual orientations and gender identities—into the Church…welcome and bless them.

As the first out person from within the LGBTQ+ community to apply to Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA—to apply and be let in with a scholarship, to boot—it was an three year experience of change and transformation for both the Seminary and myself.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a wall flower.

The day I preached in senior chapel we had a whole bunch of unexpected guests from the largest PC(USA) church whose very conservative senior pastor sat on the Seminary Board of Directors and once preached a very homophobic sermon.  His church folx reported to him on my message; and there became a bit of a firestorm on campus because the Seminary President was also the Moderator for the PC(USA) that year. 

Soon PC(USA) news streams such as The Laymen and The Presbyterian Outlook along with gay news streams, such as The Southern Voice were publishing articles about this lil ole NOT-Presbyterian Dyke caught up in the middle of a Denominational Conflict over the inclusion/exclusion of LGBTQ+ folx; and to top it all off the day after I preached about what happens to LGBTQ+ kiddos who are rejected by family and church and community, the world learned about Matthew Shepherd hanging from a fence post in Laramie.

All I asked of the Seminary Community was to pay attention to ministry of Jesus—to take all the children, including the Queer Kiddos, into our arms and hold them, support them, love them, and bless them.

Twenty years later…

Twenty years later, I am still asking for us to take all the Queer Kiddos into our arms, to hold, support, love, and bless them.

In the state of Delaware, we may have some of the most LGBTQ+ affirming laws on the books, but those laws do not equally apply to our schools.

If I were Trans-Identified – assigned female at birth – knowing myself to be male and in 8^th grade I can use affirming public space at the Mall, but not at my school.  I could and would be bullied by students and even some teachers.  I might be afraid to come out to my parents/guardians because those oft too oft (and might I add) misquoted clobber passages are like walls between me and my parents, my community, my school, and even my God.

In our state, based upon the Delaware Youth Risk Behavior Survey, we have about 3% identifying gender expansive, or roughly 3,200 kiddos and we have about 14%, or roughly 15,000 kiddos identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, etc.

One in four of all LGBTQ youth in our state report being bullied on campus.

One in four self-harm.  One in three plan to end their life.

One out of seven attempt to end their life and need medical attention.

And too often we see an obituary in the newspaper on a teenager who suddenly died; and I wonder if that kiddo was part of the LGBTQ+ community and no one knew…or knew, but didn’t offer love & bless them?

Our Department of Education does not have anti-discrimination policies and procedures in place to protect Gender Expansive Youth; and yet evidence-based research on this area has noted that where comprehensive anti-discrimination policies exist in school districts, there has shown as much as a 14% drop in suicide attempts by LGBTQ+ youth.

The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought [little children] to Jesus, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’

Who are today’s disciples creating roadblocks to all God’s Beautiful Children—to all the Children that God looks at and says, yes, they are created in our Image and they are very good?

Are the disciples the School District Board Members?

Are the disciples the Delaware Department of Education?

Are the disciples the parents, teachers, & preachers who are being pressured to buy into a binary system at the expense of our children’s health and happiness?

Who is speaking sternly against our Queer Kiddos; and how come far too many of us are silent hand ringers hoping someone else advocates for change?

I say, if you are an ally, then become the pathway for Queer Kiddos to receive blessings; and for parents of Queer Kiddos to receive support.

*  *  *  *

Jacob Tobia’s book Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story is memoir about their experience growing up; and a story worth our reading as contemporary sacred queer text.  Too often, we Cisgender Allies think we are allies without realizing we act too much like Jesus’ Disciples sternly warning and hand-ringing, but when we get out of our way we may transform like Jacob’s dad…

We have the chance to change into love…a love that is less about words and more about our actions.

Jacob wrote about his father/to his father:

You show love through actions, not through words.  And the way you’ve changed, the way you’ve figured out how to love me even when I come home from church in a red dress, lipstick, and chunky-heeled boots is no small feat.  Your transformation of love is nothing short of miraculous.[v]

When we, who call ourselves disciples actually follow Jesus, we begin to see all of creation as very good, we begin to support all people in living their truth; and the kingdom of heaven comes to our earth.  Amen.

---

[i] What the Torah Teaches Us About Gender Fluidity and Transgender Justice by BY RABBI DAVID J. MEYER , 9/20/2018

[ii] ibid

[iii] Mollenkott, Omnigender, 120

[iv] As quoted in Transgendered: Theology Ministry and Communities of Faith by Justin Tanis, 74

[v] Tobia, Sissy, 301

Can you do it?

Are you able to dedicate the time and make a commitment to guiding your attitude toward loving yourself more today than you did yesterday?

Easier said, then done, right?

It may require breaking the old records one might replay in their head where the grooves were formed in childhood.

It may require removing the bandages one placed over their still open wounds to treat the injury that has never healed.

Breaking old records and healing old wounds means embracing vulnerability; and embracing vulnerability can be very hard…sometimes it is easier to cling to old messages and familiar wounds because they are what a person knows…

To choose healing…to choose to love oneself more may very well mean to venture into the unknown…to become vulnerable

In US culture, embracing vulnerability is no easy task as many choose to numb their past and numb their present with debt (buying what isn’t needed), weight (eating when not hungry), medication (taking both legal/illegal substances to altar one’s consciousness)…old records playing and old wounds festering are what a person knows and seeks to numb against.  But…

What If You Simply Devoted This Year To Loving Yourself More?

It may require embracing courage, compassion, and connection…

Courage to be imperfect and be at peace with imperfection without apology

Compassion to be kind to self first; and then to others

Connection to another as a result of choosing authenticity

Authentic connection begins to break through the numbness a person may have enveloped within to cope; and authentic connection to self and others is to choose to begin taking the path to transformation.

Unapologetic compassion with self is to acknowledge that with every step up the climb one may slide back a few paces on occasion; and that is okay.  It takes time to wear a new groove in a new record to be played in our heads.

Tenacious courage is the refusal to quit whenever it feels too hard to make the changes that will bring a person to greater joy and peace.

May you devote this year to loving yourself more so that the world will be a better place because you are helping to make it so through your courage, compassion, and connection.

 

∇   We live up to the story we live under.  And so, the question, which begs to be answered is, “whose story are you telling when talking about yourself – the story you are writing or the story someone else wrote about you?”

When you describe yourself are the words flattering holding up your best qualities or are they negative having been fed to you from someone at some time in your past that they are so a part of your emotional DNA you fail to notice the lasting lingering scar?

We tell stories every day in all settings and situations – it is a most primal form of communication – existing before written word came into practice.  Stories link us to ancient traditions, myths, symbols, legends, as well as our own lived experiences.  It is asking our co-worker how was their weekend or checking in with our child about their school day…this sharing of our stories is what makes for the foundation of all our relationships.

We enjoy good story tellers, too, for they can make us laugh and cry while painting a vivid picture of our world today or of place far, far away.  Through stories we share our hopes and dreams, passions, joys, fears, and promises for what tomorrow may bring…because stories take place in the hard wiring of our brain – both real and imagined stories trigger our emotions and dictate our physical responses.

When the iPhone battery runs out or the electricity is lost, we still have our stories to share once the sun has set – our stories are the emotional food to which we nurture mind, body, and spirit.

Stories are the way we think, too, bringing order and meaning to the world in which we live.  How  we tell our stories also speaks to the type of personality we possess, too.  Do you tell an analytical story full of facts and numbers or do you use images and analogies?  Do you use words that engender positive attributes or negative critiques?

How we tell our stories dictates how we view, not only our world, but our place in this world?  And so, I beg the question once more:

∇  “Whose story are you telling when talking about yourself – the story you are writing or the story someone else wrote about you?”  We live up to the stories we live under; and my hope for you is that you are intentionally choosing the words of your story to live by and guide you in the day to day!

May the words you choose be positive and powerful, beautiful and full of compassion for you and those around you.

May the words challenge you to live into your greatest potential with good humor and solid purpose.

May you Embrace the Power of Your Story, Today! (Because it is never too late to change the narrative!)