Frying Pans From Heaven: When A Transgender Person Sends You An Email…

Last updated on: July 25, 2016 at 10:54 am by Kerry Connelly

Frying Pans From Heaven: When A Transgender Person Sends You An Email… 2016-07-25T10:54:13-04:00 Kerry Connelly

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

K is working hard to extricate herself from four years of Sozo Prayer ministry. She says her world was “completely shaped and defined” by it, and she is fearful of falling back into old patterns of self-blame. She says:

Being told, every single time you bring up a hurt that’s happened to your heart in real time, that you’re “being theoretical” and “living in your head”, is a super effective way to be trained to take care of all your personal and emotional needs entirely in the closet, and never engage in human interaction of any kind until your facade and shell is in perfect working condition.

K – email dated 7/23/16

She is working to peel back the layers of the toxic form of Christianity that has left her, in a sense, a religious orphan:

I think it’s just scary, peeling off these layers of Christianity that are not mine, and feeling like I’m tearing myself back down to nothing… the toxic rejection of whatever in me contradicts conservatism too directly — that is so intimately tied to the Christianity and all the literature of how I’ve learned to love people, that I’m afraid that rejecting enough to clean my system means rejecting all of it, the basic ability to talk to people and be social with people.

And then I ask, what is the point of the Christianity and the Christ-imagery? What is the point of professing my commitment to God, if I could just as easily be a godless poet-humanist with the same tools theoretically?

And then I speak into events and injustice, speak against the easy ways out and the pat answers, and I realize: Who of all the atheists and the philosophers and the scientists is going to give me the language to speak myself and my conviction with as much throat and lungs as Jesus does? Who among the most brilliant but godless progressivism has the words to convict as deeply as Jesus’ words about children and birds and throwing the first stone? to rebuke power and violence with as much truth and contradiction of carnism itself, as washing feet, blessing my most hated enemy, dying on the cross? And I find myself impatient with atheism, and cling fast to Jesus’ cloak.

K – Email dated 7/23/16

I so relate to K’s words here. There have been dark times in my faith walk, times when all I could do was hold fast to the edges of Jesus’s cloak. There have been times when I have thought, “This is all bullshit. It’s too crazy. It can’t be. It makes no sense.”

But Jesus.

I always come back to him. It starts and ends with him. But something happened 2000 that set the world on a different tilt. And that something was Jesus.

And K — like so many of us — still wonders.

More than anything else, “Who will take me in?”

I’ve spent four years being convinced that no one offers real intimacy and relationship, no one will be able to enter into true relationship with me, but people who have been sozo’d and people who Christian like we.

I’ve already found secret pockets and robust communities of support and love from criss-crossing networks of queer and women in the friends and alumni I already knew. I’m already connecting with bloggers and reading books, of Christians who give me words of truer affirmation than I’ve known in four years of church, and that I don’t have to spend hours contorting and changing myself…

I wonder if we, as Christians, are able to stand in the anger that K feels — to just stand there, allow her to be, allow her to feel, and not feel a need to defend, to justify or somehow prove her wrong?

And I feel all this, the direct contradiction of literally everything everyone ever said about non-Charisma anything… and I want to say, “Fuck you!” “Fuck you, Christianity!” “Fuck you, Christians!” And I know that I’m supposed to have grace, and I’m entirely too tired and hurt and angry to. My default mode is grace…This family quarrel with my Christianity of the last four years, I feel…so abused and used and discarded that I do not want to forgive, I do not want to give them more of the life juice they’ve been sucking out of me for four years even if they weren’t aware of it.

And my vacation time draws to an end, and I’ll be flying back there soon. But I know that they love me, I know they’ll be supportive; but I don’t feel loved, not by a Christianity that has to interact with me at theoretical distance and tolerance mediation because I am a pestilent *liberal contrary to their core beliefs about money and compassion.*

But you’re here. You’re Team Mystic. You have that personal relationship with Jesus that everyone says is Dangerously Pagan, you speak a dialect of the same heart-language that my heart knows of talking to God. And you are awake to the real demands of Love in our time and nation — black lives, queer lives, all the lives that white money wants us to forget about. How do you do it?!

I do not know if there is any point in saving a faith that I didn’t have until my adult life and that I didn’t even commit to on the deepest level. But I do know my heart is hurting and needs more hands to hold, more friends who will sit with me and just be with me instead of trying to fix and solve a problem right away in one brilliant stroke.

K – email 7/23/16

My words for K have been words of love, and I hope, affirmation. I wanted to move aside here, in this space, to give her room. I wanted to step aside and let you hear her voice, so that perhaps you will find understanding, and compassion, and maybe, just maybe, if someday a trans person walks into your space, you will give them open arms rather than a savior complex, a listening ear and not judgement.

Maybe, for once, we Christians can love without agenda.

Like Jesus.

__________________________________________________________________________

A message from Kerry: I know this one might be hard for some of you who really, really want to show love for all people but struggle with your understanding of scripture (we all struggle with scripture!). All I ask is that you show compassion and love for K in the comments. Remember — this is a person. A soul who is loved by God.

Hate speech, general idiocy, and ugliness in the comments will be removed immediately.

Go back

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 22, 2016

You Need To See This: Rachel Held Evans Speaks At the Gay Network Convention

Next Post

July 28, 2016 Stone Throwing: On Rightness, Not Righteousness

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Guest Bloggers Justice The Feminist Stuff The God Stuff The other stuff. Uncategorized You Need To See This

Select a Month August 2019 July 2019 February 2019 January 2019 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 June 2018 May 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 September 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 August 2014 July 2014 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 October 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the biblical view on telling the truth?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Use flattering words Lie to help others Speak the truth in love Stay silent always