A Parable

One fine morning, walking down the street, an ugly woman met a man dressed in a fine Italian suit. The ugly woman nodded politely, and the man said to her, "Isn't it beautiful, how the sun revolves around the earth."

"Oh, but it doesn't," the woman replied. "The earth revolves around the sun. It's a proven fact."

Impatiently, the man brushed an imaginary bit of lint off his sleeve. "You are wrong!" he said. The woman was ugly, and dressed in rags – obviously she was morally inferior and unable to discern reality. "Look! You see the sun, rising in the east? Every day it goes across the sky to set in the west. Clearly the sun revolves around the earth!"

"No, look," the woman said, pulling a tattered map of the solar system from her knapsack. "See? This is a scale model of the solar system. See how tiny the earth is in comparison to the sun? See the orbit paths of the planets? The earth revolves on its axis, so we see the sun rising and setting – and the earth itself orbits around the sun."

"Aha!" the man said. He pulled a Bible from his briefcase and scanned to the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. "Look!" he cried triumphantly, pointing to verse five. "Incontrovertible proof that the sun revolves around the earth!"

The woman shook her head. "That's not what it says. It just talks about the sun rising and setting. This…" she pointed at the drawing of the solar system, "… is the model of the solar system."

"Hmmph!" the man exclaimed. He reverently put the Bible back in his briefcase and lifted his nose in the air. "You are obviously a creature of base morals. What would you know?" And he walked down the street, comforted and confident in his own inherent moral and intellectual superiority.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

A Biblical Surprise

I love the 139^th Psalm, verses 1-18, with its lyrical assurance of God's everpresent Love. Sometimes I turn to it for comfort, for a reminder that I can never, not for one second, anywhere, be separated from the love of God. But this morning, as I turned the tattered pages of my Bible in search of it, something from the 142^nd caught my eye. I stopped to read it.

Then I read it again.

I read it a third time.

I never expected a three thousand year old man hiding in a cave to write my own prayer – the prayer of a trans woman. Because that's what it was. What it is. A mirror of the desperation that drove me to transition, of the faith that, though not couched in any religion, led me to take that irrevocable step across gender lines.

~*~

Psalm 142
Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave

I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

~*~

But wait, you say, your family loved you! They cared deeply for you.

No. They did not know me. They cared deeply for the man they thought I was. But I was lying to them; my soul was deep in prison, and they cared not for me, because they could not know me. I lived then in a cave of my own making, a prison that seemed to have no door. But when the desolation of loneliness overwhelmed me, I cried out to the Universe; the door opened, and my path was shown; can I say that it was shown by other than divine Love? I had tried all others; religion, therapy, the Marine Corps, marriage, drunkenness, fantasy, adventure. Nothing opened the door until I surrendered to the one path that could bring my soul out of that prison.

And I am compassed with loving, open arms – friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and colleagues. The Lord has dealt bountifully with me.

He will deliver me from my persecutors; for if they are stronger than I, they are certainly not stronger than Him.

The Definition of Marriage

In his book "The Future of Marriage," David Blankenhorn devotes an entire chapter (pp. 91 to 125) to the definition of marriage. He traces the history of marriage, the biology of marriage, different forms of marriage in different cultures, and focuses on fatherhood as the core meaning, or definition. Even so, I don't have the sense that he's entirely satisfied with his definition. It's terribly ironic, because there is a simple definition that has been written down for millennia, which really sums it up. That definition is found at the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

I always read this as meaning that they become one in sexual intercourse. But that's not what it means. You can have sex and not be married. It happens all the time. For that matter, you can be married in the physical, social, legal sense of the word, and not be married in the spiritual relationship that it is.

The key point, the crucial word, in this simple definition is "one." "They shall be one."

Marriage is a spiritual relationship, not a physical one – though it does have a physical component, which is embodied in the sexual relationship, but which is probably not necessary to consummate in order for the marriage to occur. In fact, marriage is probably the spiritual meaning or embodiment of sex, but that spiritual relationship is not contingent on ceremonies or legal documents or property exchange, or even a vow. It is an aspect of family, but family is more inclusive. Children are an aspect of it, but they are not necessary to it. Some "marriage defenders" put "responsible procreation" only within the boundaries of marriage, and in the spiritual aspect of it, I think they are right.

The problem is that Blankenhorn and other "marriage defenders" have limited the definition of marriage to the physical, social, and legal sense of the word. They have mistaken the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.

Notice the simple phrases that make up that one sentence definition. "A man [shall] leave his father and mother." A child, growing up, separates from his nuclear family, from the unity to which his mother and father belong. "…and shall cleave unto his wife." I emphasize "and" because it's not enough to separate from mom and dad. The adult child must also form a new relationship, which has a sexual connection or aspect – what Blankenhorn calls "pair bonding." "… and they shall be one flesh." Again the emphasis on "and," simply because there is no way to separate the two aspects. The "one flesh" is spiritual unity. By pair bonding in this way, those two people literally become one unit. That unit is marriage. It's like an molecule of water – atoms of hydrogen and oxygen bond to create a new element. And, like water, that element can be re-divided into its individual parts; but when that re-division happens, the element no longer exists. (That is divorce. And that spiritual divorce can happen with or without dissolving the physical-social-legal aspect of marriage.)

That spiritual unity, whole unto itself, is basic to humanity. It is part of our spiritual biology. Growing within it is the spiritual and emotional birthright of children, and that birthright should never be intentionally taken away.

In this, the "marriage defenders" are absolutely correct.

But what "marriage defenders" don't understand, is that the physical form of marriage is only the physical manifestation of a spiritual entity. The social institution of marriage, in whatever form it is manifested in the different cultures of the world – patriarchal, matrilineal, whatever – is how society honors, acknowledges, and recognizes this spiritual entity and unity. The form doesn't matter. And while the social institution of marriage is important in honoring and sanctifying the spiritual entity of marriage, in supporting the child and the child-rearing unit, it is not vital to it. Marriage will continue whether it is recognized by society or not, because it is at heart the joining of two individuals into one unit – and it is inherent to our species.

What they further don't understand is that gender is not a defining aspect of it. That sexual-spiritual unity exists among gay and lesbian relationships, and in my experience as a witness, is very common to those same-sex relationships. In other words, like it or not, gays and lesbians do marry, in the basic, spiritual-physical aspect that is the genuine entity of marriage – literally, the marriage of the Bible. The Bible puts it in terms of man and woman for good reason; by far the most common marriage relationship is between a man and a woman, and that is the form of the marriage relationship that produces children entirely within itself, and until the recent advent of IVF gestation and surrogate motherhood, the only way children were brought into being inside a married, family-childrearing unit.

So the first question we must ask in the marriage debate is whether we are going to define marriage as a purely physical relationship, or as the spiritual relationship it is. The health of the social institution of marriage is directly proportional to society's value and recognition of the spiritual entity of marriage.

The second question in the marriage debate is whether we as a society are going to find a way to honor those relationships between same-sex partners with a social institution, or whether we will continue to throw gay and lesbian families – gay and lesbian marriages, and their children – under the bus.

Then lets talk about how, within that framework, we are going to ensure that every child possible is raised with the birthrights of both family-childrearing unit and biological heritage intact.

An Apology

I would like to apologize to Christians everywhere – all of you, not just the conservative ones I've been having this conversation with – for calling Paul an "arrogant jerk" and a liar. I feel sad that I did this, and regret it, because it did not meet my own need for respecting you, or connection, and not even for my own integrity. I have no right to so arrogantly dis someone that you hold in such high regard, and I'm sorry. I could have respectfully disagreed with some of what he said, and I will revise my post "Thoughts on God and Sex" to reflect this.

Besides, Paul wrote some really beautiful stuff that was spot on, like I Corinthians 13, which, besides being spot on, is remarkable in its beauty. He certainly deserves respect for that.

I was wrong. I apologize.

Thoughts on God and Sex [Revised]

There's an interesting distinction in my battered old King James that is replaced with the word 'homosexuality' in a lot of the newer translations. The word homosexuality wasn't even coined until something like the 1890's, so using it in a Bible translation seems the height of hubris. Anyway, in Romans 1:26-27, Paul says "…even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another…" Big-time condemnation of homosexuality and homosexuals, right?

But remember who Paul was speaking to. He was a Roman Jew living in an area that was saturated in Greek culture. Remember what a mentor was originally? He was an older Greek man who accepted a post-pubescent boy to be his apprentice, student, and paramour. Every man was expected to mentor somebody, and every boy expected to be mentored. Remember Sodom? Who wanted to have sex with Abram and Lot? That's right, it was every single man in town. (All the married ones, too.) It wasn't a few women shacking up together that earned Lesbos its reputation.

So who was Paul talking about? Read the whole chapter. It sounds a hell of a lot like a hell of a lot of people. Not just a few queers.

Was he condemning homosexuals? Or condemning people who had sex against their own nature?

Who hurt other people more – Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts who enjoys a loving relationship with another man, or that pastor in Colorado, what was his name, Ted Haggard or something, who ripped his family and church apart with his relationship with a gay prostitute?

Homosexuality isn't a choice. Nobody in their right mind, in our culture, would make a choice like that, and invite all the hate, ridicule, discrimination, and physical danger of gay-bashing that comes with it. You're gay because that's who you are, and either God made you that way, or God got the hell out of the way and it was a random chance, or God doesn't exist, or God made a mistake. Oops. Sorry, Tom. I got these rules, see, but I just made you in a way that you can never obey them and be true to yourself at the same time. You don't obey them, and I'm gonna drop you into a fire and torture you forever. Tough life, dude, good luck.

It's tough to say with Paul [- at least, it is for me, because I disagree with a lot of what he said -] but I think he [had intentions of helping people live happier lives]. I'm guessing he was talking about heterosexuals. And that would imply that it's a sin for a homosexual to get married and have sex with a person of the opposite sex. That's right. I said that Paul's words imply that sometimes it's a sin to have heterosexual sex within the bonds of matrimony.

(I think that's why Republicans have so many problems holding their marriages sacred. At least when Democrats cheat, they cheat with people of the opposite sex.)

The question is, do we generalize Paul's condemnations in the first chapter of Romans to mean that the problem is sex outside of marriage and individual nature, or do we generalize it to mean that the problem is homosexual sex?

If it's the first, are we furthering the gospel by ensuring that between two or three percent of the population cannot have sex that is natural to them within the sanctity of marriage?

How do we decide which position Paul was taking? How do we gain the wisdom to make that choice? And what is our responsibility to do so, and sit in judgment over our fellow humans? Does Paul, or perhaps Jesus, offer any guidance?

Well, perhaps.

I turn my battered old Bible to Matthew 5:44, and read, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

I flip the page. It's made of rice paper, thin, delicate, and torn from many readings, so I turn it carefully, kind of holding the torn pieces together. And there I see Matthew 7:1-3: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?" I turn the pages again, to Matthew 22:21, where Jesus says, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

(Y'all can have your new translations. I'll keep my old King James, with its beauty and poetry. And it smells good, too.)

Maybe we don't have to make that choice.

Maybe we don't have to take that responsibility unto ourselves.

Maybe we can withdraw from the argument, and let God do the judging.

But wouldn't that mean we'd have to let people decide for themselves who they thought it was natural to marry? Wouldn't that mean changing the laws to admit the whole range of gender and sex into the legal institution of marriage? Men with men, women with women, transpeople with whoever?

Wouldn't that destroy our society?

Um… well – what does it change, on a practical level? Those folks are getting married in their own churches already. They're giving birth, adopting, raising kids, and doing it with legal hurtles we don't have to deal with. But they're making it work. They're signing contracts and living wills that ensure they own their children and that they'll be with their partners in medical emergencies. They're planning ahead and enriching lawyers left and right. They're facing life with courage and passion, and yes, love.

What is our responsibility to our fellow humans – and, for that matter, to the elect of God, our own congregations?

What does it mean to come out from the world, and be separate?

If our neighbors Tom and Andrew want to go down to the courthouse and sign a contract to love each other and raise their daughter together, we don't have to officiate at their wedding, do we?

No.

We don't have to welcome them into our pews, do we?

No.

We don't have to say we agree with them, do we?

No.

We don't have to compromise our faith in any way, do we?

No.

The legal contract that they sign in front of the county clerk doesn't equate in any way with sacred vows spoken at the holy altar of God, does it?

No. That contract is sealed with the "image and superscription" of Caesar (or, at least, the state).

We can, however, stand out in front of the courthouse, and show 'em Romans 1:26-27, and explain that we're really worried that they're making a big mistake, and all those bad things Paul threatens are going to happen to them, and tell them how much we love them and how badly we'll miss them if they don't make it into heaven with us. That's what we'd do if we really loved them, like Jesus says we should, right?

But if we really loved them, would we stop them from passing by and making that mistake? Would we raise a gun, and point it at them, and tell them we'll shoot if they pass through those courthouse doors? Would we join arms together and form a human chain that would block them, and use our greater numbers to prevent them from acting on their own conscience?

Because that's what you're doing.

What would Jesus do?

Domination Culture

A friend was talking with Kristin about her garden the other day.

"I wish my soil wasn't so thick and compacted and hard."

Kristin: "Well, that's why I've mulched this one so much." Our garden has fruit trees and fava beans blooming; asparagus, potatoes, and peas sprouting; kale, collards, chives, and swiss chard already at or near harvestable stage; garlic growing quickly.

Her friend sipped her tea. "I know, but I've got a commitment problem. I never know whether I'm going to be here next year, or not."

Kristin raised an eyebrow. "Well, what's your commitment to the earth?"

"What do you mean?"

"My dear, you don't have to do it for you. You take all your food from the earth, and give nothing back. You can do it for the earth, or for the next person to live there."

"Oh!"

The sound of lightbulbs going on.

We have an amazingly self-centered culture. I may be wrong, but I put the fault at a mistake made long ago, written in stone in the first chapter of the Bible: Go forth, and subdue the earth, and have dominion over it; God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed… and every tree; etc. No one remembers that the first part of that commandment is "replenish the earth," and the reason no one remembers it is because the entire paradigm of our culture is in direct opposition to it.

We belong to a culture that says, "The earth belongs to us, to do with as we please."

In fact, as Chief Seattle said, we belong to the Earth. "Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

As a species, and as a society, I believe there is nothing more important to our survival than to make that simple paradigm shift. But when I see how the dominant religions in the world – especially, in our country, Christianity – all agree on the domination paradigm, I'm not optimistic.

Ironically, I think Chief Seattle's paradigm was exactly what Jesus was trying to get at, when he said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; … Seek ye first the kingdom of God." The Earth is the kingdom of god; and we should return to Mother Nature Her dominion over us. We should take from Her gently, and nurture Her in return.

But of course, interpreted from a domination paradigm, the message is different. The kingdom is something that only happens after we die – after the Earth has been stripped, raped, and barren – and we get there by making damn sure that homosexuals can't get married.

Never mind that they go ahead and do it anyway, just without the legal and civil rights that fine, upstanding christians take for granted.

Thoughts on Eternity

Mathematically, eternity is a point, not a line.

Let me explain.

Eternity is frequently viewed as time extending out infinitely. This view is ubiquitous in religious dogma, where the fear of suffering in hellfire and damnation is harnessed as a means of social manipulation and control. Or, to remove the evaluation from that statement, eternity simply means the future, or the past, extending forever in either direction. It has nothing to do with the present, or, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, “the Now.”

As a practical matter, though, placing eternity into the past and future renders it meaningless. How can any human relate to infinite time? The earth is what, five billion years old? And in five or ten billion more, it won’t exist. Who can comprehend it?

Bringing eternity back to the present – the only practical way to look at it – makes it useful and incredibly meaningful. Think about it. What time do we actually have? Only right now. That is all we will ever have. Two minutes from now is the future – it doesn’t exist and never will, as a human experience. Two minutes ago is past, and can only be experienced in memory. We live, we breathe, we die, now. And now is all we have. Now and eternity are synonyms.

What does that mean for the words of Jesus, or other Bible figures?

It means a lot. It means that heaven and hell are not future events, but present experiences. It offers us an escape from fear, a path of love, a way to live in the present and embrace completely our lives right now. It is incredibly empowering.

Eternity is the point at which we live our lives. If one's life is hell now, it is hell for eternity, because it is one's experience in the only time that exists. It’s a good sign that we ought to do something to fix it.

And we can; every moment we have the choice of changing something within our lives to meet those needs that are currently unmet.

(Thoughts on) Love & Hate

It's often considered in our culture, that hate is the opposite of love. I've thought about it quite a bit, and I disagree. I believe that fear is the opposite of love.

I've come to this conclusion through the culmination of a variety of sources. First, I was a practicing Christian Scientist for a number of years. The works of Mary Baker Eddy, such as "Science and Health, with key to the Scriptures," helped me realize that fear interfered with the healing power of love. I experienced some significant Christian Science healings during that period, and those that came easiest and quickest came when I managed to completely dispel fear. Second, the works of Eckhart Tolle and Thom Hartmann (Thom's spiritual writings, not his political stuff). Mahatma Gandhi, and his ahimsa revolution. Learning about quantum physics, both in college and later reading, and the movie "What the [Bleep] Do We Know?" And last, the works of Marshall Rosenberg and learning the rudiments of Non-Violent Communication.

NVC is wonderful. It abandons that language of evaluation and judgment we are taught with the baby's milk of the Bible, and goes straight to connection – self-connection, connection with others – through deciphering the feelings and needs behind our actions. There is a distinction between primary feelings, and secondary feelings. In tracking backwards from the most intense of emotions, we break down the elements of that, to basic emotions, and the universal human need(s) met or unmet in inspiring the emotion. In doing this, we see that hate is a secondary emotion. It is always born in the wake of one or a combination of three primary emotions – fear, frustration, or grief.

Love is a primary emotion (check out the instant reaction to seeing your baby, all purple and slimy, for the first time), and it is also a universal human need. But if hate is a combination of three other primary emotions, which is the opposite of love?

I believe it is fear. Fear most interferes with the power and experience of love, and is least experienced in combination with it. Fear takes many forms, from mild anxiety to 'fight or flight' intensity. It is frequently used as a political tool, to convince people to surrender their autonomy to some public figure, to justify attacks on innocent people (such as gays or Jews), or to justify military action against neighbors (Iraq). It weakens the knees.

But love, ultimately, conquers fear. The military officers who ruled India laughed at Gandhi when he said he would defeat them without firing a bullet – but it was they who were defeated.

And Non-Violent Communication breaks down the paradigm of judgment, and gives us tools to analyze the fear that is frequently promoted in our media and by our politicians, and so determine the needs unmet and more constructive, effective ways of meeting them.