Fever Pitch

February 24, 2011 Leave a comment

Demonstrative differences,
Placard positions held
Above eyes that do not see and
Ears that do not hear,
Become the Rhetoric of Pressure:
“We demand you recognize the truth of power.”

(Denigrating innuendo,
Self-serving solipsism
And proprietary ‘truth’,
Private property of the affixed,
Morphs into murder when
Scoped long enough.)

Folded arms –
The versus-versus of “WE”
/Block /“THEM” out.

*****

Tempest aside,
Demonstrative differences
Converge into community (> us v. them),
When the will to want truth
(Truth, as opposed to what my peers let me get away with saying)
Is also the will to embrace the other –
As “members one of another”
We “speak truth to our neighbor”.

Example given:
A demonstration of truth-love,
Fever pitched –
A baby, this Jesus, Son of Mary.
A Witness to what He has seen, to what He has heard
Of the Father.

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, Poems, Poetry, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

Endnotes

February 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Time has a caption
Written in stone:
“In Loving Memory;”
“Here Lies So & So.”

Neglect of the spirit,
The body, the soul,
Will banish the goodness
Tarnish the whole.

So, reflect on the Passion –
Christ’s death on a cross,
Repent and return,
He looks for the lost.

Eternity’s caption:
“Forever With Him,”
Means I choose daily
To live without sin.

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

*****************
Better yet…

THOU hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart

John Donne, The Holy Sonnets I.

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, Poems, Poetry Tagged with , , ,

Sisterhood of the Traveling Ya-Ya

February 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Dreams serve to help us resolve day-to-day problems while we sleep. Upon waking, dreams most often vanish into cerebral thin air while the effect of the dream, the mind’s resolution, goes on with the person into their day. It is also known that vivid dreaming will often happen during periods of personal emotional upheaval and stress. They have for me. One dream in particular stands out. I am living it.

In 1995 I struggled with the issue of gender-dysphoria. I had struggled with this issue since my early childhood. But that year, the question had become the pea in the princess’s bed: I could no longer sleep, eat or work properly. I was deeply unsettled about the matter. Being in a relationship with someone at that time made the issue all the more acute. When I finally did sleep I had many dreams. One dream stands out as being clearly prophetic in all of its symbolism.

The dream: I am standing at the end of a long dark tunnel, a tunnel deep underground. My sense is that I have been on a subway train for a long ride. I get off the train and was face the exit. Looking up (since I am way below street level) I see light coming through a long rectangular opening. I start walking up the slightly pitched exit ramp towards the light. As I walk I notice, appearing directly in front of me, a tall chest of drawers. I open the top drawer and inside there are women’s things and jewelry. I close the drawer. I feel good.

The closer I walk to the entrance, the better I feel. At last I stand at the large rectangular opening. The dark tunnel is behind me and a bright sunny day is out in front of me. I see tall buildings and behind them I see Lake Michigan. I see myself working in trenches along the shore of Lake Michigan. Unlike the tunnel I just came from, the trenches are open to the blue sky and warm sunshine. I sense that I am extremely happy working in these trenches. I feel a sense of peace. Then I see myself lying in a lounge chair on a sandy Chicago beach. I am looking out at the water, a great open expanse before me. My journey has ended and I have reached my final destination.

This dream, of course, is rich with symbolism. Carl Jung would call it an “archetypal dream” – it is mythic and grand, completely vivid. Within the dream I seek to integrate my feminine and masculine qualities – the anima and animus. Compared to my life at hand, it was the impossible dream.

This dream occurred during a time in the 90’s when I attended a church in the Chicago area. The church was, at that time, coupled with two local para-church organizations. One of the organizations is a ministry directed toward helping homosexuals leave the gay life style. It is led by a former homosexual. The other church ministry is dedicated to the “healing of the soul”. “Healing Prayer” teaching seminars were led, at that time, by a Kathryn Kulhman type figure – a self-styled prophetess.

The prophetess wrote books which were filled with quotes from notable Christians such as C.S. Lewis. Her writings spun off into different directions using her own spiritual experiences to formulate a point. After reading several of her books, I wasn’t exactly sure what her point was. It seemed to me that she tried very hard to appear intellectual and bookish and to be taken seriously. An aura of mystery surrounded her person. This invoked an image of a feminized Elijah who was often whisked away by her crew to pray in the Spirit out in the wings.

To give you an idea of the confusion that was wrought when she spoke I’ll share with you a conversation I had with someone in the lobby of Wheaton College’s Edman Chapel where she spoke. I was there attending a healing prayer seminar given by this woman. I was seeking some kind of resolution to the gender issue in my life.

During one of the healing seminar sessions, I got up to stand in the lobby. I was tired after sitting for several hours. Out in the lobby I met the doctor who was also attending the session. This doctor had delivered my son. We struck up a conversation.

Like me, he had been sitting and listening and he had also decided to get up and stand in the lobby. Standing in the lobby together, he asked me directly if I knew what the prophetess was talking about and I said, “She keeps saying it will make sense later, but I don’t know. It hasn’t made sense yet” The doctor looked puzzled. He was hoping that I could bring some meaning to the mishmash of words spoken in the auditorium that morning but I couldn’t. In fact, my own confusion was becoming deeper. I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she talked about gender issues and self-image issues, applying healing prayer to wounded-ness.

The soul healing seminars (and books) offered by this ‘prophetess’ would deal with a host of psycho-sexual issues including homosexuality. Many of the people who came to the seminars had been wounded in their youth. The wounding would include rape, abandonment, neglect, beating, mistreatment and even a possible traumatic birth (breach births, cord wrapped around neck, etc.). In essence the seminars were like spiritual LSD. Through healing of memory prayers, the attendees would relive some of the painful memories and then have those memories prayed over and then supposedly vanquished, leaving the person to go on with their life without the burden of the past. At least that was the idea.

Having been around this woman for many years while attending the afore-named church I can say that she is a wonderful person with discernible good motives. She seeks to help others who had been wounded as she had been early in her life. Her seminars bring many hurting people together including homosexuals who desperately want to leave the gay lifestyle. The healing prayers offer a place to start looking at the core issues of homosexuality, issues born out of deep neurosis and family life situations.

Her seminars would talk about the re-symbolizing. Re-symbolizing is important when a person wants to leave a bad pattern or life style behind. It helps someone, with a ‘healed’ imagination, to focus on what is good, pure, noble and true. In this process, re-symbolizing replaces the image previously fixated on and even idolized and gives the person the image of the cross – the suffering Servant, arms open, who seeks to embrace you. This message was always abundantly clear from her talks and writings.

Misogyny, the hatred of women, was one driving motive behind the origin of the ‘prophetess’ healing prayer seminars. As she recalled in one seminar, the prophetess had endured misogyny early in her life. Her mission, she felt, grew out of a need to help others who had endured oppression, hatred and worse from misogynistic people, mostly men, but women could also be misogynistic to other women and to themselves. This calling was made clear from the beginning of her writings and talks. When she related in one of her talks that she considers her misogynistic uncle an “Ass” you knew she has an axe to grind and a hatchet that needed a burial.

What wasn’t clear to me and to others are her words about the “true self”, the “true masculine” and the “true feminine”. She pointed to God as having “the True masculine and the True feminine”. What was the “True self”? What was the True Masculine? The True Feminine? And, why parse things so finely?

Many of the seminar prayers (and writings) included prayers prevailing upon God to bring a person out of their wounded past and into their true self, into a true masculine or true feminine identity. I have since learned that there is no true masculine or true feminine identity, only the sexed body, male or female, that you were born with. Gender identity, though rooted in the sexed body, is fluid and mostly a social construct. Consider these words from Miroslav Volf, a Christian theologian and currently the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale University Divinity School:

“Nothing in God is specifically feminine; nothing in God is specifically masculine; therefore nothing in our notions of God entails duties or prerogatives specific to one gender; all duties and prerogatives entailed in our notions of God are duties and prerogatives of both genders…”
Men and women share maleness and femaleness not with God but with animals. They image God in their common humanity. Hence we ought to resist every construction of the relation between God and femininity or masculinity that privileges one gender, say by claiming that men on account of their maleness represent God more adequately than women or by insisting that women, being by nature more relational, are closer to the divine as the power of connectedness and love.” Miroslav Volf from Exclusion and Embrace, 1995

I attended many of these healing seminars. I did so because I was desirous of walking in the Spirit and hopefully finding a reason for the gender disconnect within. The teaching/healing prayer seminars were described as praying the soul into well-being. The prayers were not a one-shot fix but a starting point from which the soul which had been wounded or cut off from its “true self” would bring God’s touch to a place of deep wounding. Then, the process of healing could begin.

Back to the dream. During the healing prayer seminars participants were prayed over by the ‘prophetess’ and her prayer team. I was prayed over several times with prayers spoken in tongues using holy water and a crucifix. It was during this week of healing prayer sessions that my lucid dream occurred. I considered the dream, at that time, to be symbolic and nothing more. Recently, I now understand the dream to be a prophetic dream. I’ll explain.

Several years ago I made the decision to live as woman. When I did, I understood that God had given me the grace to do this and to be in a relationship with Him. God was willing to embrace me as a woman. God was not threatened or put off by my change. In fact, I have certainly been blessed throughout the process.

Recently, while riding the train to work, my tunnel dream and its fullfillment came to mind: I am a ‘new’ woman; I work (in the trenches) in Chicago near the lake front; I am settled and laid back (as the dream’s lounge chair would symbolize). I am at rest. A dream come true.

But, my dream is used as a nightmare by my ex. In my ex’s hands, my change has become a wedge between me and my children, a way of alienating the children from me. It is my ex’s ‘normalcy’ argument that hammers the wedge deeper and deeper: my ex’s position is that she is normal and that I am not. She tells my children this in so many ways on a regular basis. I know. I hear back from them. Children will learn prejudice from their parent/s over time. This is true wherever there is any off-putting’ of people and groups throughout our world.

My change, by the way, never absolved me from responsibility to my children. I continue to parent my children and give them what they need.

While the attempt to heal the soul is a massive undertaking, I see any desire to heal the soul as laudable. At the same time I am concerned about the specific ideation of the true self, the true masculine and the true feminine identities. These definitions could drive people into further confusion and perhaps into more despair. Perhaps, it would cause a return to a bad or broken symbolization because her teaching embraces the new idols of the masculine and feminine: her teaching identified the “True masculine as the man being the initiator (thrusting, pushing forward, aggressive) while the True feminine is the woman receiving (actively passive), relational and integrating life.” More mishmash. Each of us has masculine and feminine qualities and their amounts are negotiated within the society each of us live in.

On closer examination, the true self, not seduced and influenced by TV and the media, is the person who finds his or her identity in a relationship embrace with Jesus Christ. Gender identity, anchored in a sexed body, free-floats. It can be active and passive, giving and forgiving (think marriage of a male and a female, an Adam and Eve narrative). Harbored in Christ this identity is able to be open to others. It is known for its ability to accept changes in the other and to do justice.

A prophetess, a dream and a reality. The Divine Secret of the Traveling Ya-Ya finally makes sense.

“Now you can understand the quantity of love that warms me toward you, so that I forget our vanity, and treat the shades as the solid thing.” Dante’s Purgatorio 21.132-135

Filed under Christian, Christian character, Christianity, gender, gender dysphoria, Homosexuality, LGBT, Life story, Transgender Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Embrace Life

February 2, 2011 Leave a comment


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Washington D.C. March For Life 2010

January 30, 2011 Leave a comment

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The True Myth of Friendship: Part Two

January 15, 2011 Leave a comment

Continued from Part One…

Part Two: Billy the Kid, Bill the Buddy

1960. The move from the city brought our family thirty miles west of Chicago to a small suburban village. Our new subdivision housed Germans, Italians, Czechs, Mexicans and one family from the backwoods of Kentucky. The families on our street lived only on the northern half of the block. The southern half was paved but no homes had been built yet. Our ranch home was across the street from a German family and an Italian family. Billy’s house, across the street also, stood two houses north of the German family. It was during the first morning in our new location when I met Billy. But first, I caught sight of his dog Blackie.

On that bright summer morning I went out to our front yard to scope out the neighborhood. Our front yard, unfinished, lay before me as an uneven mass of sun baked dirt impressed with bulldozer tracks. As I was scouting the neighborhood I noticed that across the street someone opened a door of their cape cod. Immediately, a black dog bolted out between the woman’s legs, running as if it was escaping perdition. I watched the dog race down the driveway heading towards the open prairie at the end of our street.

Billy’s mom, standing on the stoop, called into the house yelling loudly, “Billy go out and catch your dog.” It took almost a minute for Billy to come stumbling out of their house. By now the dog was at the end of the block. Billy ran to the sidewalk and called down the street for Blackie. The dog, for whatever reason, was deaf to sound of him. I then saw Billy go down the street after the dog, just barely running. It appeared that physical exertion was something he did as a last straw measure.

I joined in the chase soon after when I saw Billy four houses down, bent over, huffing and puffing. This would be no problem. I had sprinter legs. I could out run any boy. I wanted Billy to know this so I chased after Blackie.

Once the dog was in tall grass, Blackie seemed to regain his perspective and turned back, having had his fill of doggie wanderlust. I walked up to Blackie, petted his beautiful black coat and slipped my hand under his dog collar. Billy then shuffled up and said, “Thanks.” I introduced myself. So did Billy. As we walked back to our houses, we talked about our new lives out in the middle of what we thought was nowhere. Billy’s family had moved to the neighborhood a year before.

Slightly plump, Billy instantly reminded me of Sluggo Smith from the Nancy comic strip. Billy would regularly wear blue jeans and a dirty white tee shirt that would never cover his belly button. Over time he stopped trying to pull his tee shirt down. And, over time I learned about his family.

Billy’s parents were German. His father was a security guard for an armored truck company. I would see him would come home and get out of his Cadillac wearing his Brink’s uniform, a gun at his side. When I was at Billy’s house, as I often was, I would see Billy’s dad come in the door and kiss his wife as she stood there waiting for him. She would then hand him a cold beer – a Schiltz. Taking the beer he would then go upstairs and change out of the uniform. After ten minutes or so Billy’s dad would come down stairs and go directly to his easy chair in their living room. This scenario was played out at 3:35 in the afternoon, five days a week. Billy’s mother, Millie, a housewife with two kids and an untamed dog, made sure that things went smoothly when Billy’s dad was home. But, between Billy and Dicky (Dicky was Billy’s brother) and Blackie dog, this was an impossible task. Billy’s mom had an easy going personality but the rest of the household each commanded a stream of consciousness narrative that would play out over and over again, turning the household mood into inevitable chaos.

I would soon learn that Billy’s father had an ugly disposition after a few beers. You certainly didn’t want to be around him any more than you had too. Avoiding him wasn’t hard, though. Most days after work, Billy’s dad was affixed in his easy chair, drinking his Schiltz, smoking his Camels and staring blankly at the TV. For supper, his wife would bring him food on a TV tray. The two of them would eat together in the living room. Then, after eating, Billy’s dad would often fall asleep in his chair. At ten o’clock the news came on. Then, after a few minutes of watching the news, he would finally go up to bed.

Whenever Billy and I wanted to play Pong and Billy’s dad was in his easy chair, us kids would walk quietly sneak up stairs to Billy’s room and close the door behind us. Billy and I kept our distance, safe in Billy’s world – his room.

Blackie dog didn’t know better. The dog often grabbed uneaten food from the TV tray while Billy’s dad slept. Aroused from sleep by the slobbering dog, the old man would let a string curses resound throughout the neighborhood. Hair would stand up and children would cower.

Billy’s room. Bill was the first techie I knew of. His room was decorated with ‘60s electronics: Eight track players, wall size woofers and tweeters, lava lamps, a commodore computer, an Atari game player, a color TV set and black lights.

Billy loved electronics: Radio Shack bags were all over his room as were subscription copies of Popular Mechanics and circuit diagrams. Under his bed were trays of resistors, rectifiers, Zener diodes, LEDs, capacitors, PC boards and a solder gun with solder. It was a mini low voltage electronics lab.

Billy would spend hours devising small electronic doodads: AM radios, beepers, BCD counting displays and countless other devices. He once devised an entrance alarm for their home’s doors. He wanted to know when his mother or father came home. I knew why.

It made sense, later, when Billy graduated from high school that he attended DeVry Institute of Technology. He would receive a Bachelors degree in Electronics Technology. One of his positions later in life: a QC manager in a prominent electronics firm. Billy was a hands-on techie with logical know-how. But, there was no science versus romantic conflict in him. He was also an ebullient romantic at heart. He nourished his romantic side with a constant stream of music.

Billy owned a large stack of LPs. And, as LPs were being replaced with eight track tapes Billy began another collection, but this time for his car. Billy bought music almost daily. A small sampling of his music would include the following: “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman Turner (BTO), “Saturday Night Fever” by the by Bee Gees, the whole Woodstock album, “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Emerson Lake and Palmer, The Carpenters album, “Last Train to Clarksville” by the Monkees, The White Album by the Beatles and Rolling Stones’ albums. Billy especially liked the Fifth Dimension song “Bill”. He played this one almost every day. I had to listen.

When Billy played his music, the earth moved. The reverb would fill every inch of his house. Billy’s mother would yell and Billy’s father would yell but Billy would just shut the door to his room and crank the volume even more. For Billy, music was the ‘potential’ he needed in order for his ‘circuits’ to function well.

As I mentioned, Billy was a hands-on kind of guy. He worked on his car and sometimes on his parent’s car. He changed the oil, the filters, the tires, the air freshener – he wanted to work on it all and he did. One summer he took the engine out of his car. For Billy taking the engine out wasn’t a big problem. Putting it back in and making it work was a whole other situation. It didn’t go well. The car was finally towed to a mechanic who was able to restore the engine to its working order. Billy learned a lot about cars from working on them and I watched or helped as I could. If Billy was a book the title would be Zen and The Art Of Do-It-Yourself Mechanics.

Billy and I were best friends. I played with the other kids on the block but I spent most of my time with Billy. Because we were close I invited Billy to our church.

I wanted Billy to know about Jesus. I soon found out that Billy’s dad wanted nothing to do with the church. I could tell that this mom was interested in the Lord but she stayed home with Billy’s father. Billy attended the weekly boys club. During one summer we both attended the Vacation Bible School. We had fun together making crafts with popsicle sticks, listening to Bible stories and drinking gallons of Kool-Aid.

It was during this VBS week that the pastor held a chapel service for all of the kids. He asked if anyone wanted to follow Jesus. Billy and I both raised our hands. After a prayer we both went up front to talk with somebody about our decision. We were then given new Bibles. And, on a Sunday night not long after this Billy and I were both baptized. We gave our testimonies and were then immersed in the Baptist tradition. Billy unabashedly gave his testimony while standing in the baptismal tank.

Speaking with a newly found smile, I could tell that Billy was thrilled to be a part of something, something bigger than him, something that he could bump up against and know that it would not yell back at him. He felt accepted and loved. His words that day became words of thanksgiving for being accepted by Jesus and by his church family. I will never forget the day my best friend Billy decided to follow Jesus.

Above the choir loft, next to the baptismal tank, a wooden sign hung with a single line of text: “The Lord is in His Holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent. Habakkuk 2:20”.  During the 1960s and 1970s, the earth was not about to keep silent, especially not for Billy and me.

**************

Part Two: Billy the Kid, Bill the Buddy, …continued here.

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, History, Non-fiction, The True Myth of Friendship Series

The Tie that Binds Us

December 23, 2010 Leave a comment

Her name is Magda. I sit next to here on the train many nights while traveling home from work. I’ve known her for three years.  She has worked on the same floor of the same engineering company that I do.  Not long ago, though, our CEO moved the financial dept. to the 35th floor.  Magda, part of the financial group moved upstairs and I remained with the engineers. We were no longer able to pass each other in the hallway and talk.

We do however talk on the way home from work.  Over the past three years and many miles of track Magda has told me about her life. In turn she has asked me about my life.  She is usually reserved and business-like in her conversation.   She will ask me direct questions about my kids and my family. I will answer them and then I will ask about her family. There is parity to our conversation: with each question’s answer we become equally knowledgeable about the other. Lately, though, she has asked more probing questions, specific questions regarding my grandparents and their end-of-life care. The reason for this, I believe is that her mother, who recently turned one-hundred, is in need of continual care.

 Magda moved her mother to a senior’s home this past summer.  Prior to this, her mother lived on her own in a condo out east. Magda’s brother, who lived locally, would check in on her regularly. During the time the mother lived alone the mother’s growing frailty combined with regular falls gave the family reason enough to move her to a place where she could be monitored and cared for daily. Their mother now lives not far from our train station and not far from Magda’s home.

 Magda has confided in me about her mother.  She told me that her mother is very cognizant of her surroundings and is able to move about but she continues to fall almost daily.  Each fall is more deeply injurious and the healing process becomes longer. Her circulation is faulty.  Her drawn skin, now blotched purple, bears the bruises of everyday life. A while back the toes on one her feet had to be amputated because there was no longer any circulation to the extremities of her foot. Her mother hadn’t noticed the problem and no one knew until too late.

 Magda is married. Her husband is a retired orthopedic surgeon/medical school professor who likes to winter in Florida at one of their vacation homes.  Magda, when on vacation from work, flies down to be with him.  Right now, though, Magda has been in town helping her mother convalesce until her brother comes to town to replace her for a spell. Every night she drives the couple’s Jaguar over to the senior care home.

 We rode the train together again last night.  Magda, sitting in the seat in front of me, turned around to me as she has the past several weeks to talk. Magda was wondering how others deal people have dealt with someone who is advanced in age, still independent in mind and spirit and yet too fragile to take care of themselves.  She asked about my grandparents.

 I told her that one set of grandparents died early in my life.  My mother’s father, Simon, died before I could meet him. There is a picture of him, my mother, my father and me.  I know him through the lens of someone else’s eyes.  My mother’s mother came to live with us when I was about eight years old.  Svea was eighty-five years old and becoming more feeble every day.  Because she was from Sweden she was not always easy for us as kids to understand – her talk and her ways were strange to us.  My parent’s cared for her until she became too ill.  She was then moved to a hospital where she died not long afterward.  I remember this first great sadness and loss in my life.  Grandma was living with us and now she was gone forever.  I missed her greatly when she died.  Her bedroom was empty, her spirit gone. What remained throughout our house were the delicate lace doilies she had created.

 My father’s parents lived well into their eighties.  They sold their single family home and moved into a senior’s condo residence.  There, safe in an easy to move about environment, they knew friends who had made the same move. It was a small community of elderly people, Dutch people, who regularly met in the cafeteria to talk about their kids, their grandkids and their great-grand kids.

 My grandmother, Zena, was the first of these grandparents to die.  My grandfather was never quite the same after that.  He couldn’t function without Zena.  They had been married for over sixty five years.  Eventually, my grandfather was moved to a smaller condo in the same group of buildings. There, he deteriorated rapidly.

 By this time in his life, much of my grandfather’s family was out of state.  From what I could tell, my father was the most caring of his children.  He went out of his way to care for my grandfather.  My dad, who lived out of state with my mother, asked me to look in on my grandfather. Because I still lived in the area I would visit him on a regular basis. I would sit and talk with him.  When I left him I brought his laundry home with me to wash and then returned it on my next visit. With each reoccurring visit, though, there seemed to be less of my grandfather. In conversation, his mind fumbled for words.  In the interludes of silence, his spirit was with my grandmother.

My grandfather died about a year after my grandmother.  They found him on the floor of his condo. The cords of death loosely wrapped around him, tripping him up.

 I shared all of this with Magda.

 The difficulties of caring for an elderly parent who is rapidly deteriorating can grow exponentially.  Each detail of the elderly person’s life becomes a major life issue:  simple movement, daily exercise, eating proper food, taking medications, the continuous care funding, the provision of emotional support and so much more.  The life support system of a concerned family becomes critical to the care of the person facing their mortality.

 Last night, Magda related to me all of the things involved with her mother on a daily basis. Magda visits her mom once a day.  She drives over after work and spends time with her, walking her through the hallways. There was a night recently, Magda told me, that there was small church service going on the community room of the care center.  Magda asked her mother if she wanted to go to the service but her mother refused, saying, “It’s only a church service.”

At this point in our conversation, we were both standing and waiting for the train to pull into our station.  The hour long sometimes jolting ride is hard on the legs and back.  Neither of us can sit that long. After talking briefly about the church service, Magda changed the subject and asked me about the books that I had been reading.  She said it looked as though I was studying for something.

 I pulled the book back out of my bag:  The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens.  I explained that Peter is the brother of well known atheist Christopher Hitchens. Christopher is an English-American journalist, author and columnist.  His writing can be found in Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and other publications.  Peter, his brother, is a British journalist and author as well.  Peter is a Christian.  The recently published The Rage Against God describes his return to faith in Jesus Christ.

 I explained further that I was reading this book and the other book I carried with me because I wanted to give these books to my two elder sons.  I wanted to know what Peter gave as his reasons to return to faith. The other book I carried and read was Nancy Pearcey’s Saving Leonardo:  A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals & Meaning.

 I told Magda that my eldest son describes himself as an atheist.  He told me this one day in the car.  He did not want to be baptized. He did not want anything to do with the church or Jesus.  He was almost eighteen at the time.

 I made it clear to Magda that I wanted to lead my sons to Jesus Christ.  With a puzzled look she said, “That will be hard.” Then she asked, “Do you think people still believe such things?” I asked her, “You mean, believe in atheism?” “No, “she answered, “do you think people still believe that Jesus saves people from theirs sins and all that?” I told her, “I absolutely believe that to be true. There is no doubt in my mind.”

 The mention of the senior’s church service by Magda was the first time in three years that she has said anything close to matters of faith. I understood from our many conversations that Magda was a self-made independent woman who reads the New York Times.  Her worldview was completely secular.  She told me that she hadn’t been to church in years. I quietly realized that the book I was reading about Peter Hitchen’s life prior to faith in Christ was parallel to much of the secular worldview Magda espoused.

 Our conversation continued as we walked out of the train towards the parking lot.  She told me that she thought it was funny that a young person would be leading a church service at an old folk’s home and that he was excitedly talking about people being saved from their sins.  It seemed completely absurd to her.

 All I could do at this point was smile and tell her that as a teenager I also went to these senior homes with a man from our church every other Saturday morning.  The man, elderly himself, would speak for a short time about Jesus Christ and I would play hymns on my trumpet. I told Magda that trumpets were good instruments for the elderly.  They had no problem hearing me play. This made her smile.

 As we began to part ways looking for our cars she said, “Well, have a nice weekend.” 

 I reached over, touched her arm and said, “Have a Merry Christmas, Magda.” 

 We would see each other again next year. God willing.

Filed under Christian character, Christianity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

How Shall I Then Live?

December 19, 2010 Leave a comment

I have just finished reading Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals & Meaning by Nancy Pearcey, B & H Publishing Group, Copyright 2010.

As a student of art, music and literature, as well as, some philosophy and a good bit of theology, this book jumped off the shelf and caught my attention. Saving Leonardo gives the reader an overview look at the history of modern man’s fact/value split (known as the “lower story” and the “upper story” in her book) and helps us to understand the two basic worldviews that are prevalent today: Continental and Analytic. These two streams are manifested throughout today’s art, music, literature, politics and pop culture.

Pearcey uses the following dichotomies to describe our evolved mindsets:

Facts/Values
Box of Things/ box of the mind
Machine/ghost (Descartes)
Nature/Freedom (Kant)
Formalism/expressionism
Mind (autonomous self)/body (biochemical machine) – in toto, the Liberal view of the human being
Imaginative truth (art)/rational truth (deterministic world of science)

In the Continental worldview, she notes, there are the schools of idealism, marxism, phenomenology, existentialism, postmodernism and deconstructionsism. The Analytic worldview stream holds empiricism, rationalism, materialism, naturalism, logical positivism and linguistic analysis. She quotes John Stuart Mill in talking about “the antagonism already separating the two traditions: The lower story, with its materialism, “is accused of making men beasts” while the upper story, with its irrationalism, is accused of making men lunatics.””.

Culture has reflected the dueling mindsets along the way. Artists, composers and writers have portrayed the philosophies of the day through their art. Saving Leonardo gives prominent examples of artists who have either mirrored the prevailing thought or who have worked to oppose it.

The book is divided into two main parts: The Threat of Global Secularism and Two Paths to Secularism. As a trans-gendered woman I became particularly interested in Chapter Three of the book’s Part One. The title of Chapter Three: Sex, Lies and Secularism.

In the section Hooking up, Feeling Down Pearcey begins “Let’s move to the most contentious sexual issues of our day such as homosexuality, transgendersism and the hook-up culture.” She then goes on to say that having an understanding of the two-story dualism of modern thinking will help the Christian in providing a holistic biblical alternative. Because of her shotgun approach of scoping trans-gender-ism within the same sights as aberrant sexuality, Pearcey does, I believe, relegate trans-gender-ism to be on par morally with acting out homosexually and one-night stand sexuality. I would state emphatically here that trans-gender-ism is not about acting out sexually. Trans-gender-ism is not homosexuality. It is about gender identity/gender dysphoria. My concern with anyone reading Chapter Three and Pearcey’s own reductionism of the trans-gender-ism issue as being a person with a deluded worldview interlocked with a self-hatred would be that the reader would certainly be misguided and misinformed about trans-gender-ism and gender dysphoria.

To be sure, trans-gendered (TG) people can act out homosexually or bisexually. Certainly, anyone can act out sexually and do it from a broken place in their psyche. Sadly, though, I have witnessed this same type of marginalizing before in the Christian community:  trans-gender-ism aligned with homosexuality . In doing so, Pearcey sites the same article that I have contended with previously. Interestingly, though, she doesn’t mention the mindset behind the 50% divorce rate rampant in the church of Jesus Christ. (There appears to be enough biblical grace for divorcees but not enough grace for the trans-gendered individual who is at odds with their own body.)

Saving Leonardo is an overview of culminating worldviews. Because of this, suffice it to say, I read the rest of the section and the chapter and there is no detailed understanding given about trans-gender-ism, only inferences made about being able to flippantly choose your gender. The assumption here being I guess is that Pearcey is going to tell you what to understand about the issue. These assumptions are revealed in the section titled PoMoSexual Alienation. This section does mention that there are people using a postmodern point of view regarding gender.  These people contend that gender is fluid and changeable, rejecting “the binary male/female system a mere social construction.”

One of the challenges for Christians coming out of this chapter should have been, “you should seek to understand other people’s sexual issues (their world view) but keep your own sexuality pure.” The effect of this kind of mind/body sanctity and wholeness, including an enduring marriage, is a strong testimony to the rest of the world whereas the elitist knowledge of ‘good and evil’, provided in this book, doesn’t go very far with anyone. Also, the word “compassion” is used by Pearcey, but, for all intents and purposes and in practice, it is just an empty word used to cushion talk about “contentious issues” by Christians in the ‘know’.

  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have provided some identifying ‘sexual’ definitions for the LGBT community that I have witnessed first hand. I made these definitions so that I could talk about differences with the LGBT community. In the community itself the definitions overlap. Definitions, within the community, are secondary or even tertiary issues behind getting people to affirm and codify their behavior as being OK (most recently, the repeal of Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell). The LGBTQ community has changed labels (from homosexual to gay; from homosexuals to community and so on) to massage the message, to make what they are doing more palatable to others. But, they will also use the word “Queer” and other evocative terms when they need to describe their ‘personhood’s’ ‘empowered’ and ‘liberated’ uniqueness.

Some general definitions: trans-sexual men are men who want to appear as women to gain sex with other men. Trans-sexual women want to appear as men to gain sex with other women. I don’t have to give examples here because you have seen this acted out in daily life. Because Saving Leonardo is an overview of the generation of worldviews these sexual distinctions are not noted in Pearcey’s book. Only blanket statements are wielded regarding sexuality/gender issues seemingly to rattle the cages of the Christian chipmunks asleep on the wheel.

I mentioned earlier that transgender people identify themselves by their gender disconnect from their body and not by their sexual preferences. Pearcey does talk about the mind/body brokenness in modern thinking and there is some truth to what she is saying, especially as it relates to the LGBT community, but also, as well to the general public. We are a people who say that bodies can be disposed of (abortion, euthanasia, embryonic research) and can also be used for sordid pleasure (homosexuality, bi-sexuality, trans-sexuality, hook-up sex, etc.) and who augment, plasticize, starve, binge-purge and reinvent our bodies, our looks, to fit a certain desired idolized self-image.

Pearcey writes about gender issues later in the section Bodies Matter. She talks about the Gender (psychological identity and sexual desire)/Biology (physical identity and anatomy) split. She talks about the divorcing of gender and anatomy as a means to denigrating the materiality of the body. She writes, “A genuinely biblical view honors and respects our biological identity. Psalm 139 says God “knits” together our bodies in the womb. Masculine or feminine identity is a gift from God to be enjoyed in gratitude.”

I agree with these words. I believe in a binary gender/sexuality – of male and female as separate and distinct beings. The physical boundaries of gender are represented by the unique anatomical differences of male and female. Psychologically, male/female boundaries are generally more fluid, hence sexuality issues and gender issues can more easily arise resulting in conflict and a resolution or repression of the conflict. Sexual identity may be influenced by environment, social constructs, psychological trauma and/or biology (hormone secretion on the brain in the womb). All of psychology’s assumptions about how gender identity is ultimately derived are just that, assumptions. None of them are verifiable. Psychology does, though, seek to relieve a person’s distress by trying to understand the cause of distress. The biblical wellness scenario: the whole person is a mind and body, one unified whole, either male or female, who is not in distress or despair.

What God has created is good.  He knitted me together in my mother’s womb  – with the gender disconnect.  Because of this and the fact that there is also the work of redemption going on in human history, I made the decision many years ago to make the changes needed to live as a unified whole and as a woman. This was after many hours of ‘rationale’ sessions with counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists and healing prayer. I came to the understanding that I could make the change because God gave me the grace to do so within the framework of a Christian worldview of redemption. I do not embrace a post-modern worldview of gender.

Born in the fifties, I was raised in a Christian home, without psychological trauma or encouragement to be a female, I never heard of a postmodern (PM) view of gender as described by Pearcey in this chapter. Of course, I knew of Woodstock and Warhol but I knew at the same time that I had a strong Christian worldview and also that I was female.

No trans-gendered person I know of, and there are many, had made their changes based on this PM worldview premise that Pearcey describes in her book. Rather, each one at various times has told me that they knew their gender identity when they were a small child. They may have, later on, used the PM gender theorist’s justification of gender fluidity to endorse their change from a secular worldview point. The real genesis of their change, as told to me, was inherent in them from the start of their lives. Generally, when a person writes about something they have no first hand knowledge of, they make assumptions and generalizations based on the loudest proponents banging their drums off in the distance. That is the case with Saving Leonardo, Chapter 3.

In doing so I feel Pearcey blacklists transgender people. Beyond this, I have also heard Nancy Pearcey, during a recent radio interview, mention the same “contentious” connection – trans-gender-ism and homosexuality.  She undoubtedly set some teeth on edge about the subject of trans-gender-ism. I heard her say this on a Saturday morning MBN broadcast program called In the Market with Janet Parshall (I am a former student of the Moody Bible Institute.  Therein lays my interest in the radio program.).   When a person talks in this way they continue to propagate, I believe, a fear of the unknown (gender dysphoria).  And, when people don’t understand something they often will reject it wholesale, out of fear.

Nancy knows, I have no doubt, that Scripture is very definitive about sexual sin whether its homosexual sin or hook-up sin. She also knows that Scripture does not define or mention trans-genderism (TG-ism). Because of this, Pearcey has to make inferences regarding TG-ism. I don’t agree with the inferences she has made in this section, the first being that it is related to a “contentious” sexual “issue” such as homosexuality or hook-up sex.

Here’s something of what compassion for a trans-gendered individual would look like:

1. Understanding that trans-gender-ism is not the same as acting out homosexually. It is not a sexual issue. It is a gender identity issue. (In general, most people are not confused about their gender. Some people are confused about their gender and then, there are a few people who are gender dysphoric.)

2. Understanding that trans-gender-ism (gender dysphoria) is a disconnect between mind and body that usually originates in infancy or early childhood and carries on into adult life. This disconnect may be due to a traumatic childbirth (see Frank Lake’s Clinical Theology), perhaps due to a deep psychological neurosis, perhaps due to a biological imbalance of hormones before birth). In any case, it is a heavy burden to carry. Christians are to bear one another’s burdens.

3. TG-ism may or may not be treatable or changeable in this life. The person may not be able to overcome his/her disconnect through counseling and Christian social ‘shock’ therapies (Dobson-esque tough love). In any case, this person has to choose the path to wholeness. The desire for wholeness, I would suggest, is inborn in all humans (the underlying point, I believe, of Saving Leonardo). I chose wholeness and unity of mind and body and spirit and a celibate lifestyle to walk in.

4. Tough love results in an even tougher resolve.

5. Accept the trans-gendered person at face value. Don’t be dismissive of them. (I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a wife whisper to her husband, letting him know that she knows ‘about’ the trans-gendered person. This woman only wants a laugh at the TG person’s expense.) There is no need to create a social leper colony, keeping TG people away from the church. Embrace, not exclusion.

5. A trans-gendered person can have a happy life. Much of what I hear from Christian articles about trans-gender-ism is that trans-gendered people go off into despair and perhaps even become suicidal.  This is not true, at least in my case and for others that I know. 

6.  It should be noted that a gender dysphoric person is not a neat little cataloged item found in a DSM manual or some coordinate on a worldview system map who may be pointed out with a “contentious” disdain.  Rather, gender dysphoria is a person with their own personal dichotomy of mind and body who seeks complete and utter wholeness.

Having said all this, I do not think that trans-gender-ism should be promoted as a life choice by any group. It is a unique and difficult situation that should not be marketed in a gender ‘mall’. On the other hand, though, I do think that when all possible remedial actions have been considered to resolve the TG person’s identity conflict and a resolution is not forthcoming – is not towards a material end as presented by nature, then a material adaptation of nature can be accommodated to match the TG persons understanding and bring about wholeness. In other words, living with a separation of mind and body is not an option for anyone. For a person who is not trans-gendered this would be a difficult concept to understand. Especially since there are trans-sexuals who do play the gender game.

I realize that a Christian rationalist psychologist will say that a trans-gendered person should live with the tension and find ways to ‘deal’ with it. In other words, live out a Jack London novel of man struggling with nature and the beast. You should understand that this tension can be exceedingly unbearable. Trans-gender-ism tension, unlike sexual tension, does not seek to resolve itself in sexual relations with another person or in emotional relationships with another person. It seeks wholeness of being. Trans-gender-ism is not kitsch posing as a woman. That is trans-sexual-ism. There are, of course, varying degrees of Trans-gender-ism. Every person is different.

Finally, I don’t need the pity or compassion as construed at the end of the chapter. The chapter begins with the mention of “contentious issues” and ends with words about having compassion for the trans-gendered person. As usual, the “contentious issues” are spelled out by the ‘Christian’ but, the word “compassion” is rarely fleshed out.

What is fleshed out: I live as a Christian woman with a Christian worldview as a unified whole. I do not hate my body. I never did. I do hate, though, Christian psychological snobbery disguised as ‘knowing’ compassion.

On the whole, I think the book is laudable in its attempt to help Christians understand modern man’s dealing with two combating worldviews, Analytic and Continental. This book gives Christians a place to begin discourse with those who are wishing to find a resolution to the worldview conflicts they are facing daily.  This opening will then enable Christians to reveal the Gospel’s answer of a complete narrative history of redemption and wholeness to those who have lost their way. The path to wholeness is difficult for everyone, even for Leonardo. So, compassion all around.

************

Footnote:
 In the final words of the book, Pearcey encourages parents to not push their kids into being conservative (keeping things as they are).  Rather, she encourages parents to push for “revolutionary” children. From my reading of Saving Leonardo, there seems to be no direct context given for defining her words.  Perhaps she means being an ‘out-side-the-box’ artist or composer or a great Christian writer or… ?

I’ll supply my own context: One revolutionary thing that I have done (something outside the box given me) is that I did not conserve (keep things as they are). Instead, I began living as woman to create a unifying whole, a life narrative of redemption, an autobiography of grace bestowed.

Finally, I find it rather strange that the author never mentions the spontaneity, sonority and musical improvisation of jazz.

Filed under Christian, Christian character, Christianity, gender, gender dysphoria, Homosexuality, LGBT Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trisagion

December 18, 2010 Leave a comment

****************

Свѧты́й Бо́же,

Свѧты́й Крѣ́пкїй,

Свѧты́й Безсме́ртный,

поми́лyй на́съ
***

Holy God,

Holy and Strong,

Holy and Immortal,

Have Mercy upon us.
***

The Trisagion prayer is an ancient prayer of Christianity.

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Brokeback Valley

December 18, 2010 Leave a comment

 

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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers

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“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus

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THOU hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart

John Donne, The Holy Sonnets I.

Filed under Christianity, John Donne, Poems, Poetry Tagged with , , , , , ,

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