Repent does not mean... well, repent.

Today's sermon talked about the importance of the metaphor of "fishers of men people," and then I learned a thing that has changed my understanding of the Gospel and the New Testament as a whole completely.

Metanoia does not mean "repent." It doesn't mean to be sorry for sins you have committed; the meanings aren't even in the same area code. This isn't even one of those debatable, "maybe it does, maybe it doesn't," things, it's a deliberate continuing error that the Church picked up on around 1000CE and just kept up because it fit in nicely with their Shame And Guilt drumbeat, and I can't even be that angry (yet) because I'm too busy being amazed.

It means something like a metamorphosis - a change in heart, a new direction, a new way of seeing. This makes so much more sense.

So, our rector told us, when you read the word "repent" in the Bible, don't say repent - don't think of sorrow, shame, guilt. Say, instead, to change your heart and mind from the inside. We should not be trying to be Christians out of shame and guilt, but out of love for God and each other. ...and, well, that's the point, isn't it?

To follow Christ - to find the Way. To change, from and into love.

I'd say more, but I think I have to go reread the entirety of the New Testament now.

(though let me just say that I am so immensely gladdened to continually be unburdened of the "KJV is Only True Word" mess. the world and the Word are so much bigger when you can actually see them.)

Suicide remains not an option.

It seems like this week, I've been surrounded on all sides by discussion about suicide. I don't know why; my usual response in situations like this is to bitch at God. Sunday, talking to folks after church, the overall conclusion of one woman was that everyone thinks about suicide at some point, just most of us don't get to the actual contemplating doing it stage. Which is where I smiled and nodded and didn't make eye contact.

Sunday night, my assistant editor told me he'd found statistics on the attempted suicide rates of trans folk as opposed to the general population: 41% (and that doesn't count successes or closeted-to-pollsters)... to 1.6% of the general population. It was the second number that staggered me. Seriously? Only one point six percent of "normal" people have tried to kill themselves? I found myself filled with something like desperate, angry, weeping jealousy. I literally cannot wrap my mind around the idea of going through life without ever thinking seriously about suicide, without having at least come close to trying it. I can't imagine life without the refrain of "kill yourself / kill yourself / kill yourself" fading in and out of the background noise. I don't understand how people can lead lives so good death never looks like an option.

In fact, my first thought was "Wait, that can't be right, I mean, after all I certainly-- oh, right." I keep forgetting where I do and don't fall into General Populace numbers.

It keeps coming up in class; art history, seems like we talked more about suicide than penises, for once. (Native history, on the other hand, we talked about how the French Jesuits were basically awesome (especially compared to the Spanish, but then, Daleks don't come off so bad compared to the conquistadores, let's be honest). We also had one kid insist that Catholics weren't actually Christians, so that was fun.)

Yesterday was the weird one, because it popped up that the only way I could extricate myself from the community of love and support that appears to have grown into existence all around me would be by death, somehow. (I briefly became convinced that I had Screwed Everything Up and needed to leave before people got mad at me. Look, I don't run my own consciousness, I just keep a record. The moment passed.) It was a bit frustrating to look down that wall again, knowing full well I couldn't do it, and be unable to beat my fists against it...

I don't even cut anymore. The closest I come these days is when my fingernails start digging against my hands when I feel like shit in a social situation where it's impossible to run and hide or yell at God. (Look, it's hard to say things like "Respectability is bullshit" while surrounded by respectable people, especially people you actually respect. But I don't know how to say "The reason I never felt welcome in the church is because it has such a stigma of being a place where well-dressed, well-polished, respectable people are. And those people don't like me. You people aren't the kind of people who approve of my kind of people." Especially because, that's the thing, they do. The dude leading the theology class is my kind of people! He's the furthest thing from respectable (once you get to know him, anyway), and yet commands respect. Church people are my people, mainly because these folks are those strange types of persons who open their hearts to just about everyone who crosses their path, and I think that's the point, but it still staggers me.

Bah, I don't know. The point is, I seem to have managed to get rid of my crutches of self-destruction, and there are enormous parts of my system that are whining, hard about that, and they keep reminding me they're there, and look, sometimes I just want to go back to the cold comfort of being alone and unloved, but I can't. I can't go back to snarling into a cold ice storm that I'm all alone and I don't give a damn what you do to me. I can't go back to burning and cutting myself as an outlet, I can't go back to staying up all night and punching trees until it hurts, wandering the streets crying out to the stars alone.

See, all that melodramatic posturing (yes, of course I know how melodramatic it was) was in reaction to the acute pain and loneliness of being... well, me, in a world that I knew didn't want me. And, as it turns out, that's something of an illusion. Even if I turned my back on the community of Grace (tough to do, even as an act of imagination), that feeling of love, of being accepted and... loved, for who I am, that doesn't go away. It's like ever since I finally opened my heart and found out God actually loved me after all, I can't go back to ignoring Him. It's really hard to extricate yourself from love, once that love is there. I imagine it could probably be done, but it would actually hurt way worse than the other normal oh-hi-mental-illness pain. And, let's face it - pulsing urge to slam my fists into a brick wall notwithstanding, my stomach for needless, pointless pain is just about gone. Damn it.

But I gotta say, having suicide as a concept waved in my face all the time is getting a little old.

Coming Out, Christian (or something like that)

A little while back, I told our Editor-in-chief that I'd like to write a column at some point about being a queer Christian. She was enthusiastic, so I started writing. Problem is, I have a lot to say, and I'm not sure how to concisely fit in all the queer issues, all the stuff about acceptance, the basic truth lines about how Christianity is based on accepting the outcasts of society, and not take up three damn pages of the newspaper.

She had what seems like a terrifying solution to that: make it a weekly column! I think I'm going to be a waffly coward and run it by our priest for advice before I actually commit. But I'm seriously considering it.

I can't think of a decent title, but I guess Coming Out Christian is almost alliterative and on-topic enough to work.

So the good news is, if I make this a weekly column, I'll be able to talk about a lot of stuff that I've been thinking about pretty often and hard lately. This is, I apologize, going to be a terribly disorganized blog entry (blame the format: I'm writing it up in Notepad, rather than transcribing a handwritten piece.)

The first thing, of course, is the obvious doctrinal stuff: No, Jesus of Nazareth never had a blessed thing to say about homosexuality (or bisexuality), though if I'm not much mistaken he does acknowledge intersex people being born at some point. (Doesn't he? "Some men are born eunuchs," in answer to one of the tricky questions he's asked by the Pharisees or the Sadducees or somebody in the crowds affiliated with his enemies.) The only people who condemn homosexuality are the authors of Leviticus, who famously also condemn shellfish, mixing fabrics, pork and bacon, cheeseburgers, touching women who are on their periods, drinking mixed wine, crossbreeding animals... the list goes on, and on, and on. You get the picture. And then there's Paul, who... well. Oh, Paul. I have a lot to say about Paul. Most of it isn't stuff I could fit in this column; I feel about him like I feel about C.S. Lewis. Initially, hero-worship, followed by a period of intense pain and loss when I realized how he would've reacted to me, followed by, far later, empathy and great pain for the pain he suffered from his own mind and self-loathing.

I've been there. I don't know if Paul was the first gay Christian. But I am convinced that he was gay (or at least bi, but I lean towards gay, reading him), that he hated himself for it, that he suffered for his lust and his self-loathing and depression. (Bishop John Shelby Spong's book pointed this out to me, and once seen, it cannot be unseen. I recognize in Paul's writings the pain and self-hatred that I have struggled with my whole life, and that's why his work is, at least for me, both so very uncomfortable to read, and sometimes so transcendent. To be reminded, anew, that God still loves us, that we cannot be separated from his Love, is such an immense relief it almost hurts. ANYWAY.) Point is, Paul is a complicated source. Women should not be subservient to their husbands, and should be allowed to speak in church; anyway, Paul contradicts himself a couple times. More on that later.

Then you get into the more metaphorical stuff, out of the realm of literalism. Because, let's face it, if you're not going to step away from the literalism perspective after reading that list, we're never going to see eye to eye anyway, which won't matter much because in order to avoid all those things you are probably going to need to go live on a commune (remember, also in the Bible is the immense importance of kindness to foreigners and strangers!). So we come to the crux, the fact that according to Christ, all the Law and all the prophets hung on two laws, and two laws alone: Love the Lord thy God (with all thy heart, mind, and strength); love thy neighbor as thyself. All the Law. All the prophets. Which means that if a law seems to contradict that, it is wrong. God is Love. I've been through this; we've all been through this. I had a lengthy blog entry years ago dedicated like three pages to this concept alone; books could be filled. The point is, if you look at the meaning of what Jesus Christ of Nazareth was actually saying, it seems to come down to something simple: sin is what you do to other people.

That's about it on the theology, except for the vision of Peter which reminded him that Gentiles were people too, and hey if uncircumcised barbarians could be loved by God, maybe so could lesbians. Who knows.

So then you come to the other part of it, the part where the rap breaks down, everything's tense no one makes a sound, uh. Well, see, I'm androgynous on the outside because I am genderqueer on the inside. I never did get around to figuring out whether I was "really" male or female; when I learned in school that sometimes fetuses start to develop male, and if something goes wrong, they revert to female, I immediately thought, "Oh, so that's what happened to me!" That impression has never left me. And then there's the whole "attracted to a smattering of individuals across all genders," which is even more damning, and the fact that I can't change that. I can't 'fix' it. I tried. It's not going away. And I flat-out refuse to "try" to present myself as something other than what I am. So I am, most likely, going to be making small children and elderly ladies double-take in bathrooms for the rest of my life; I can hope, selfishly, that that's the worst that happens to me and I never get my nose broken by some very angry husband/boyfriend/father. I have the privilege of being mostly-harmless-looking, short and white and nerdy, which means odds are good for me. I know that. I still get scared sometimes. I'm never afraid to walk town at night, nor to duck through alleys on my way home, nor to cut through unlit parks. I am afraid of guys with Confederate flag shirts when I'm coming out of a restaurant or bar bathroom. I am afraid, in a little pit inside of my soul, of how people - especially the more conservative members of my home church - are going to react to this column.

And that, I think, is why I need to write it.

Theological struggles, and elections, and macaroni

Today the valley is buffeted by strong winds and driving rain, covered all over by fog. I have all the supplies for baked mac'n cheese (I hope), for the Annual Meeting/Potluck tomorrow. But I'm not going to worry. I'm trying not to worry about running for vestry. Reading the sheet of expectations, I kept thinking... "These folks think I am a lot more spiritually mature than I actually am."

But - well - I am praying more than I used to, and perhaps more honestly, too. Our rector lent me this massive brick of a New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard), which I've been getting sucked into (!!!). You know I've never read a modern translation before? And - don't get me wrong, I do like archaic English - but I absolutely love reading a translation that's actually written in the language I live in, if that makes sense. And... well, it's not just that it's simpler to understand (in some ways), but also this translation/version feels more honest, and more direct. (I'm probably reading into it a bit.)

So, that and this other book, The Heart of Christianity, by Marcus Borg. I have to say - it was a lot easier being a Fundamentalist. "This is true; everything that contradicts it is not. Believe that and you will be Saved." Now, I think about faith as something alive, I have to look for meaning rather than just accepting literalism. It's not enough to just blindly accept what you're given - this kind of belief has me questioning myself, questioning the Scriptures and their authors, questioning everything.

I'm having to reexamine all the assumptions I had made about life and metaphysical reality. It seems unfair that I somehow internalized all this stuff without, it seems, any conscious consent. Like the doctrine of Hell - I let go of that years ago, but there are still tendrils clinging to my hindbrain that won't be removed.

More insidious, though, and more dangerous, is literalism in the Gospels. This hurts, you see, for it is so very close to the center of my faith. Can I really be a Christian without believing in every miracle in all four Gospels? All of them? Okay. Maybe I can. Embellishment happens. And then - maybe easier, because of the inherent contradiction and the poeticism in the accounts - the Shepherds, the Magi, the kind of awkward shoehorning by the author of Matthew of prophecies wherever he can fit them in.

And then, just when you thought you were safe, we come to the virgin birth. And this hurts, and this is hard, but eventually, I realize that, once again, what matters is the meaning.

And then you hit, for some folks, the resurrection, and that's where I go, "No, no, whatever else I'm letting go of, this is something I believe very truly." I don't know how I feel about the whys of the Crucifixion, but I believe in that, and I believe in the Resurrection. Because, and here's where my understanding gets way un-Orthodox, why witness otherwise. People like to point out that a lot of Old White Guys^TM got really rich and powerful off of telling this story (sort of), but the fact is, the disciples and the apostles were not made rich or powerful for telling it. Any of it. They were persecuted, and attacked, and cast out, and their Lord and Savior who they had looked to for salvation was, at least in a physical easy-to-point-to sense, gone from the world. Why keep going? Because something beautiful, something amazing, happened when Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected, and his disciples found that the Good News they had been taught needed to be shared. This message was so radical, so revolutionary, so important, that they risked and suffered their freedom and their lives to spread it.

So I guess the miracles - the loaves, the walking on water, the demons, maybe the healing - is far less important than the fact that the meaning of that message, the truth that shines through the many, many layers of human fallibility that lie between Christ's life and our own, is so important, and shines such a light through our lives, that we cannot help but share it.

One can only hope, right? I mean, the whole "Live God so well people see the Spirit through you" sounds all impressive, but if we're being honest I still feel like the wrong man for the job. It's my best friend here in town, a staunch atheist, whose response to "Yeah, it's just a mile or so down the road" is "Well, I'll walk you there, and then we can walk back together," whose response to "Oh bollocks it's cold out" is "If you need a coat, I've got one." So I guess all I can do is keep trying to emulate Christ as well as my friends seem to, effortlessly.

I suppose I should say, here, that in between writing the first part of this entry (up to the virgin birth), and the second (everything after that), I: got dumped hard on the ground by a big yellow dog, made baked macaroni for the church's annual meeting, attended church, and, uh, sorta got elected to the Vestry. So I am feeling inadequate and worried, but I figure maybe... well, I'm back to trusting the judgement of those around me. Which is just as well, I suppose.