Hope

I’ve always been a defender of the underdog. I can remember as a child, even wanting to be black so that I could better understand what it was like, and then be able to speak more intelligently in defence of racial acceptance.  

Well, my skin colour never changed, but in a way, I did get my wish. I turned out to be transgender and queer, not just  pasty white; I have my very own personal set of differences to live with, speak  up for, and defend, …and, it's not always been easy. 

As a member of this church community, those difficulties are fading from my life. Not only have I found a place where I feel welcome, but as a Worship Associate I have found a way to turn my particular life experiences, the good and the bad, into something positive, something that might just help others like me find their way.  

And so I feel hopeful for my human family thinking that if my life can be so dramatically changed with love and acceptance, then so can the lives of others, and this world then can become a better place, one person at a time... 

This past month, however, I’ve had a bit of difficulty hanging onto that hope.  If all the terrorist attacks, wars and refugee crisis hadn’t  been enough to fling me into a deep despair, it’s back lash of mistrust and hateful xenophobia had. The shear magnitude of the amount of work that needs to be done to heal this world overwhelmed me and made my contributions seem inconsequential.

But then something quite  miraculous happened. 

A fellow church member posted a message of hope on our Facebook page, and that lead me to another message, and then another, and then pretty soon I was also sharing those messages.

Then our membership decided to sponsor a refugee family, and the weight on my heart lifted. 

I felt like celebrating because I suddenly realized that our UU Faith is not just based on the belief that each individual has the spark of love inside of them, but together we keep that flame burning in each other. With each of us doing our small part, we can keep that hope alive, and with that hope, I believe we can make a real difference in this world.  I know that it has made a huge difference in mine. 

(As presented as a personal reflection during the Dec. 6th First Unitarian Church of Victoria Sunday Service)

Working Towards Wholeness

All my life I needed someone to listen to my story. It seemed almost like an obsession; I would tell everyone, again and again, looking for something, I didn't know what.   I thought it was sympathy that I craved, but in hindsight I realized that what I really needed was to be heard, understood, and accepted so that I could then move beyond that need. 

My search led me to my Unitarian Universalist church, and even after 6 years of attending, every time I hear my Ministers speak of acceptance, connection, belonging, understanding and love for all..., tears stream down my face. Mostly now it's because I am deeply touched by our interconnection and common need for such things, but there is still deep healing happening in me; I can feel it. 

Now as a Worship Associate, I have been given the opportunity to tell my story, but this time the reason I am telling it is so that others like me will feel that welcome and the sense of belonging that I was given, so that they might also find a place to heal and become whole.  There is nothing more meaningful that I can do in this life than pass on that gift, and that too helps heal what was broken in me. 

In my church we speak about ministry as being what we as individuals can contribute to our larger community. My ministry is to work toward healing, to help make whole that which has been broken.  I share my stories now, not for kudos or personal gain, but to help dismantle the walls of otherness and the division they causes in this world. Even if those listening do not relate to my experiences, I hope that they can relate to my vulnerability and and our shared humanity.  For it is my belief that if we allowed ourselves and each other to be exactly who we are with all of our differences and imperfections, we will shed our disconnection and disassociation, and slowly, but surely, our world and all that's in it will begin to heal and become whole. 

Today I Will Be Peace

Boys and Girls, Ladies and Gentlemen.....

Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, his and her’s, ... when I hear these words, I hear a list of expectations that I have never been able to quite live up to.

 "Boys are made of snips and snails, and puppy dog tails, and girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice." 

Ladies and gentlemen behave as perfectly acceptable examples of their socially assigned roles, with ladies being quiet and demure, and gentlemen being strong and supportive, politely opening doors and generally offering assistance to the weaker sex. ... I never really liked the idea of being weaker.

And the 'his and her’s', well those are our assigned clothing and accessory choices: his are practical, durable and comfortable, and her’s are frilly, pink, patterned, tight and revealing. … Let me tell you, ‘real men’ are much better at wearing pink than I am. 

I’ve always had difficulty fitting my whole self into the expectations of my birth assigned gender. … Snails and puppy dog tails seemed much more appealing to me than sugar and spice, … and quiet and demure, well, you can forget that one altogether. 

 

My gender expression tends to be fluid, somewhere in the middle and leaning a bit more toward the masculine side,  just as my personality contains both masculine and feminine  characteristics.

 … It’s not rocket science though; I should have figured it out a long time ago. I am  

what many Indigenous people call two-spirited. I now identify as transgender, but it wasn’t until recent years that I discovered that I had a choice; not until all these brave young trans people started to speak out about who they are and about how gender should not be dictated by the binary opposites of male and female. 

He and she were the only options our language gave me, and I believed I somehow had to make myself fit into those boxes, and I tried. I really did.

Now that I’ve tasted this new freedom, I can’t go back.  I can no longer call myself a woman without somehow feeling that I am telling a lie, and I’m really big on telling the truth. 

So what do I do now? What pronouns do I accept other’s using when they refer to me, ... what pronouns do 'I' use, when I’ve never really seen those that I have been using as being mine in the first place?

How are you? I am fine, thank you.

Recently I've caught myself asking the how are you question as a greeting and not waiting for a real answer, and I hope I caught this in time to stop it from becoming a habit. ... I want my exchanges to be real. When I ask, "how are you", I want the one I'm asking to know that I care enough about them to ask, and that I am wanting to hear their answer. ...It doesn't have to take long; we can all judge how much time we have to connect with each other and then gage our exchanges accordingly, and we can continue the conversation at a later time if need be...

But more often than not when I ask such a question I receive the standard "I'm fine, thank-you". And so I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm being thanked for.

If I had a magic wand I think I'd eliminate ALL this kind of false talk so that 'real' communication and connection can take place. ... It's becoming common knowledge that disconnection is one of the most common ailments of our time, and possibly one that causes so many others. ...We also know that it's possible to be kind and considerate without lying, and seriously, I think if someone finds that difficult then they need to take a look at the reason why.

I think our wanting to make things expedient and less demanding of ourselves is one of the reasons we end up feeling disconnected and unfulfilled. And then we all go off and look for something else to fill that need, something quicker and more imediately gratifying....

I believe that real exchanges are a good place to start to healing our broken world.

Uninhibited ramblings

A connection is a joyously shared responsibly, for a mutual understanding. But a slippage in that understanding can cause each  to take to their own corners in defence, no longer accepting responsibly for the beautiful oneness their past commitment had created . 

Maybe the world needs a naysayer or two. Someone to remind us that we need to stop occasionally and evaluate whether or not our good intentions are actually hitting their mark. 

Remembering the free and uninhibited conversations I once had in college while sharing a toke with a friend, tempts me to put out an advertisement saying: Wanted, someone to get high with; please feel free to jump into the conversation at anytime.

I sometimes worry that to be happy we need to see the world and all that exists on it through rose coloured glasses. We can be beautiful in our anger, profound in our sadness; there can be  no light without darkness, and if we are to keep moving  we have to accept that shadows are part of the journey. 

Imperfect

The next time you feel judged, try to remember that you are imperfect, but so am I, and so is everyone else. We live in an imperfect world where communication is at its best far from perfect.  Whether each of us are aware of it or not, our imperfections are part of our shared human experience, each of us doing the best that we can from whatever place we are occupying at that time. …It’s a wonder that we are ever on the same page.

It’s not necessary that we get it right every time; what is necessary is that we keep trying, and that we grant each other, and ourselves the grace to mess up occasionally and to begin again when we do. 

Our Whole Selves

There are many memes and quotes like this going around Facebook and the Internet in general, that talk about how we can only blame our past for how we are for so long, that each of us then has to take responsibility for who and how we are, and for the most part, I agree…  But I can’t help but think that taken out of context, the simplicity of such statements leaves much to be desired when it come to being compassionate and  understanding about how difficult it can be  to become our true authentic selves.  Meaning no offense to J.K. Rowling,  I feel that without qualification, such statements can cause unreasonable expectations of ourselves and of each other, and ultimately, do us more harm than good.

Reshaping the blueprint of who we are can be a long and soul searching process, one that for many of us can last a life time. Leaving behind how our past has shaped us doesn't happen simply because we decide to take full responsibility for who we are. No matter how hard we try, some parts of us will continue to resist change, and so I believe that taking responsibility for ourselves also means honestly accepting and loving all that we are and all that we’ve become, including those so called broken bits.

Personally, there are somethings about my own formative years blueprint that I realize I will never be able to change. I believe I will always be sensitive and emotionally vulnerable; these traits being so woven into the fabric of my being I find it impossible to separate them from everything else that I am. …Of course, I want to have control over my emotions, but I have found that trying to change or eliminate these characteristics because they are  difficult for myself or for others, is more detrimental than good for my well being.  I always end up feeling confined, restricted, and resentful that the world doesn't accept how I am, and that I have to be less like me, and  more like everyone else  to feel accepted and loved. But if I personally look at these traits of mine from a different perspective, seeing my sensitivities and vulnerabilities as assets and not as a liabilities, that's when personal change really begins to take place.

I believe that when we honestly accept how we truly are is when we  finally give ourselves the licence to begin to grow into our true authentic loving selves, the self that only we can be. Who we are has everything to do with how we got there and what stuck to us along the way.  Accepting our whole selves, taking those so called broken bits, and  shaping them along with everything else that we are, into something positive that we can move forward with,… that’s when we cease to be a victim of our past and start beginning to be who we really are meant to be.

We Are Family - Homily for the July 5th Pride Service at the First Unitarian Church of Victoria

Good Morning.  I have a confession to make.
I’m not your average kind of woman.

I bet some of you knew that already, eh? What gave it away? ... Perhaps my obvious accessory choice for this morning?  :) How do  you like my tie?

Seriously though, most of the time I don’t even think of myself as being a woman. I don’t feel that I fit the stereotype, or even the simple expectations and ideas that we all carry around in our heads about what a woman is.  As an adolescent, I absolutely hated it when I was expected to wear a dress  …And throughout my life I’ve always had extreme discomfort buying women’s undergarments of any kind. …To this day, I’ve yet to buy my first swim suit;  after multiple humiliating and failed attempts at trying to fit my unique body shape once more into something designed for a shapely female… I try to avoid such experiences at all costs.

 Shopping of any kind has, and can be, uncomfortable for me. I use to get angry at shop clerks who called me sir or directed me to the mens room when I asked for the bathroom key. What angered me was that their idea about what a woman was, was so narrow that it didn’t include me.

Now, I’m completely thrown for a loop when someone calls me Ma’am, or groups me in with rest of the ‘ladies’ in the room. … In my past I’ve been known to mask my discomfort on that point with a quip like; “I’m no lady; ladies don’t spit!”  Now that may be a bit crude, but for me it somehow reaffirmed the masculine side of me that I felt was being ignored. Luckily though, I’ve never had to develop a swagger.  ...Besides, can you see me trying to do that now? With this cane? It just wouldn’t work.

So at this point, I bet some of you are now thinking to yourselves, well, maybe we should be calling Dar a he.

But that wouldn’t do either, you see, because even though I’ve always identified with the knight in shining armour and not in the least with the damsel he was rescuing,  and even though I now buy all of my clothing, including my underwear in the mens department, I don’t think of myself as a man either, nor do I want to be known as one.

All my life, with society's pressure to conform in one way or another, it’s been something of a pendulum like struggle for me to carve out my own place in the gender spectrum.  When I came out in the early eighties, transgender wasn’t an option, or at least not one that I saw. Sure, we had gay and lesbian, and we had bi-sexual - which, at that time was thought of as being indecisive.

…Then there was Transsexual - which was, and still is a more clinical term referring to those who feel an unresolvable conflict between the sex they were assigned at birth and their gender identity, (a transsexual may call themselves transgender, but not all transgenders are transsexual,) and then there was transvestite, a now obsolete term referring to those who usually have no problem accepting their gender assignment, but enjoy dressing as the opposite sex - think Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture show.

Butch lesbian was the best I could come up with, even though many of the feminist lesbians at the time believed that those who called  themselves butch or fem were buying into the patriarchal system by mimicking heterosexual relationships. In hindsight, let's not be too hard on our sisters; they too were working  to forge an identity separate from a system that dictated how they should be, and in many ways they were the ground breakers when it comes to an individual’s right to be themselves.  

As a society we simply had a lot to learn.

Recently, I’ve started to openly call myself Transgender, Finally claiming the name because I’ve come to accept that I can no longer fit into any of the predetermined gender and sexual identity boxes offered.

Gender is not binary, but the pronouns we use are. They designate a person’s sex, male or female, instead of having any relationship to where on the gender spectrum an individual may feel comfortable, except for at the two opposite ends, male and female.
If there was something in-between ‘he’ and ‘she’, that is what I would choose, but since it doesn’t exist, I somewhat begrudgingly accept the use of the female pronouns.  They are simply what I am use to.

Please note, however, that this is my own choice, and it does not reflect the personal choices or preferences of others who use the name Transgender or Trans to describe who they are. A good rule of thumb would be if you know someone who identifies as trans, ask them what pronoun they prefer. I am certain that they will be grateful for your consideration.

For me though, it’s always been something in-between. Like Scott’s poetry spoke about,  - I too am neither blue, nor pink, but a beautiful shade of magenta.

What I find interesting about my own journey, is that it took a village for me to recognize and accept my own gender identity. About five years ago, when I joined this community, I stopped struggling to be more this or more that, and  I decided to simply let myself be who I am. There’s something to be said about radical acceptance, isn’t there? I mean, I really took to the idea that I am acceptable, loveable, and valuable, without having to be more feminine, more masculine, more lesbian, more feminist, more butch, more this, or more that. All I have to be is just more me.

Like so many others, I really needed to hear that message. We do such terrible things to each other and to ourselves with our preconceived expectation, and the thing is, when we don’t grant ourselves or each other the freedom to be who we truly are, when we have to spend so much of our time defending our right to be who we might be, we don’t actually get much opportunity to explore the potential of our true loving natures.

One of our Unitarian Universalist messages is that we each carry a spark of the divine in us, that all we have to do is be our true selves and then that light and love inside of us will shine though. … So while I was looking inward for that light and love inside of me, I stopped paying attention to the image I portrayed to the world, and all those bits about my gender identity simply fell  into place along with everything else.

So many things about me that others might reject me for, my gender identity, my sexuality, how my past has shaped who I am and how I relate to people because of it… all the things that could otherwise derail a connection, became irrelevant, or I should say, as equally irrelevant, and equally as meaningful as everyone else’s  personal bits that make them who they are.  For the first time in my life I felt that I belonged, despite, AND, because of my differences. Like so many before me I have found my place in this beloved community and I feel like I am finally coming into my own.

But not everyone has a community like ours. Not everyone is accepted and loved because of their differences, far from it.

For many, this world can be a cold and cruel place if you don’t tow the status quo line, and especially so if you are young and trans.

According to the Trevor project, a North American organization working toward the empowerment of LGBT youth, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24. ... LGB youth are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. And nearly half of young trans people have seriously thought about taking their own lives, with one quarter report having made a suicide attempt.  …And according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, these suicide attempts are not because of internal conflict, but a reaction to how these youth are being treated by their peers, and society at large.

Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behaviour by 2.5 times on average.

Queer youth are not the only ones who suffer from social stigmatization and bullying, but I find it particularly sad to think that these young people, who otherwise could be full of glorious hope and expectation about their future lives, are feeling so desperate, so alone and ridiculed, that they believe the only way to end their suffering is to end their life.

We all need to feel loved and accepted. Belonging is a basic human need. Without that grounding we are desperately handicapped in our ability to become our true authentic selves and to learn to love who we are, ...let alone come to understand the healing and connection we can find when we  extend our loving beyond ourselves and our close circle of friends and family.

Yes, things have been changing, especially here in North America. When it comes to LGBTQ people being accepted into the main stream we may think we have arrived.  Marriage between same sex partners is legal, both in Canada and now in the US… and our church has been a welcoming congregation for years.

Our Ministers, Reverend Melora and Reverend Shana Lynngood are a married couple with a family,… Heck, you’re listening to a lay service given by a queer who just spoke about her underwear preferences. ...We’ve come a long way.
But there are still so many people out there in this world who need to hear that they are beautiful and acceptable just the way they are.  As long as there are still people who need to hear that message, we still need to provide it.

That’s why we still have Pride.

Every year in cities around the world, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, gender-queer, inter-sexed, and straight folks, march together, for each other, and for those who still aren’t able to. …We come together as a chosen family, in celebration of our diversity, of our acceptance of one another, telling the world that we are proud of who we are and who we love, and that we love each other, despite, and because of our differences.
As long as there is hate in this world, we need to counter it with a message of love. For many it still can make the difference of life or death.

Let us make sure that our message can be heard loud and clear.

Earth Tremors

The church year is nearly complete, and you can sense the lightness in people's attitudes as they plan for their summer fun, but I feel  like the kid who's going to be left behind at boarding school. The people I love and care about are all leaving for holidays soon. They need a break to rejuvenate their souls. What they are breaking from is what has been feeding my soul, my needs. The community that gives me strength wants to break apart for the very reason I wish it were staying together.

Suddenly I no longer feel like I'm standing on as solid ground as I thought I was. 

That Still, Small Voice Inside Us All

Last night my wife described me as a wise person inside an electric ball of emotion, and  I thought that summed things up quite accurately.  I often react with emotion first, and then after a day or so, I gain a bit of understanding which puts an entirely different spin on things and allows me to be at peace with how things are.

I think we all have a wise person like this inside of us, someone who can see things from many different perspectives, not just our own.  Some people tap into their wise person though yoga or meditation, others, though simply listening regularly to that  still, small voice inside of them.

Regardless of the method, I believe that  wisdom is something we gain from looking inward rather than searching for something outside of ourselves. If we  practice listening to that small voice, and we are truly honest with ourselves about what we hear, eventually what we do  hear will become loud and clear, replacing all those negative thoughts that would otherwise cause us to respond emotionally. And so the more we practice this mindful behaviour, the more grounded and calm we become. For me, the time between initial emotional response and calm understanding is becoming less, and I look forward to a day when it takes up as little time and space as a thoughtful pause. 

The question, however, remains, where does that still small voice that enables us to find such wisdom come from?  Is it something that each of us carries around within us,  like a seed that grows when we water it with our attention; or is it a window to a greater consciousness, collective or otherwise?  Regardless of what we may believe, somehow when we listen to that voice the conclusions we arrive at about what is right and good, and about how we should treat each other, end up being remarkably similar. 

For me the fact that the Mystics of the past and everyday people like you and I can come away with comparable wisdoms after meditating on life's questions, is proof enough to me that there is something more, something greater, something that through our inward seeking  connects us all to each other and to a source that is true and good, in ways that science has not yet, and may never be able to explain.