An Open Letter to Our Oppressors

I follow an amazing blog rmnblog.org. And today's post was especially moving to me. Thought I would share.

In light of the passage of Proposition 8 with the denial and removal of rights for gay and lesbian couples, and the other anti-gay ballot measures recently passed, the inclusion of Rick Warren in the upcoming US presidential inauguration festivities, and recent anti-gay comments by the Pope (along with may many other previous anti-gay statements), I wish to write an open letter to my oppressors, many of them fellow Christians.

Dear Oppressors,

Yes, I hear you. I am not deaf to your messages. To the Holy Father in Rome, Reverend Rick Warren in California, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the many supporters of Prop 8, Focus on the Family, Exodus International, and so many others who publicly speak out against LGBT people and our rights, I hear you loud and clear. No matter how you sugarcoat it and wrap it up with smiles and scripture and say that you are nothing like the extremist, Fred Phelps, I hear your message loud and clear telling me that I am inferior and unwanted in your world. These are not your words, but all the same this is the message you communicate.

I hear you insist time and time again in multiple ways that heterosexuals are superior to gays and lesbians. Your marriages, your homes, your “lifestyles” are normal, but mine? Not so much. I hear you declare that I am not capable of producing anything good or beneficial other than some window treatments or a decent hair style. In essence I hear you say that I am a worthless piece of shit and the cause of untold woes and problems, the harbinger of even worst things to come.

Some of your best friends may be gay, and you may profess that you really love the homosexual, but all the while your words and aggressively anti-gay activism consistently serve to dehumanize me–to present me and my kind as oversexed, deformed animals.

You remain steadfast in your opposition to the full inclusion of LGBT people in the life of the church. You oppose, limit and even remove rights in order to keep us unequal and legally inferior. You spend exorbitant amounts of money and time telling lies about us while expending so little energy actually getting to know us. You deal with theories, not reality. And you are wrong, dead wrong.

You treat us as an inconvenient and unwanted Christmas gift that you desperately wish to exchange for something better. You belittle our love, our families, our faith, our morals, our very lives while all the time you claim to speak the truth in love. This is not love. This is fear. It is control and oppression, and it is the rejection of God’s gifts to the church, society and in some cases to your very families.

I know all about rejecting this gift. I did it for years as I repented daily of the same-sex attractions and gender differences I found inside me. I demonized my sexuality and believed no good could come of my gay orientation. I proceeded to return this gift as I bullied God for something else–I coveted my straight neighbor’s life believing the propaganda that his was the idealized norm to follow instead of trusting God for the life I had been given.

In the midst of all that I experienced grace and tenderness from God, extreme patience, kindness ultimately leading to a deeper repentance, one based in Light and reality, a repentance that recognizes that a gay orientation and gender differences came to me as an astonishing gift of power and beauty.

I confess I do not possess the same patience and understanding as God. Your words, your bully tactics, your unbridled and arrogant superiority sicken me. I struggle to love you or call you brother. Yet I remember the years that I persecuted myself and others, the dread of change that ruled my life and my narrow faith, and the need to contain everything in simple boxes with no unanswered questions or gray areas.

I may be a peace-loving Quaker and a Christian, but that doesn’t mean I am going to avoid confrontation or assume we can all just hold hands and overlook our differences. To do so would be to support your oppression and enable you to continue in it with my permission. I point out to you what you may be unwilling or unable to see. You stand as oppressors, bullies, abusers imposing your sexuality and religious views on others. Are your hearts evil and full of bad intentions? I cannot say. I do not speak of your hearts but of your actions and your words.

In spite of the opposition and the oppression, we will thrive. Transgender people, lesbians, bisexuals, and gays will have our families, our faith, our places in our communities. We will walk hand in hand with our partners without apology and without shame. We will enjoy our sexual lives as a expression of our love and as a conduit of pleasure–pure and simple. We will not go away or heed your flawed and uninformed message.

And perhaps one day you will come to your senses. Perhaps you will see with clearer eyes. Perhaps you too will repent of your bullying and the rejection of the gifts among you. Regardless, we will not back down, and we will continue to live our lives with dignity.

Peter Toscano

Grace upon Grace

John 1:1-18
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' ") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known."

Not your typical Christmas story huh? This really isn’t the picturesque nativity epic or Christmas pageant we see children perform every year. There aren’t any wise men, sheep or shepherds. There isn’t a pregnant virgin, a worried husband, or a donkey treading through the streets of Bethlehem looking for a room. And most obviously, there is no baby Jesus recently brought into the world laying in a manger, asleep on the hay.

This story is about God choosing to become flesh among us, to come to us on our level. Here this story of Jesus shows us that the point wasn’t the manger, it wasn’t the wise men’s gifts, or even the miraculous virgin birth. The point is not the human yet divine way that Jesus came into contact with our world, but that God sent himself to change our world.

At the beginning of John the author gives us a quick summary of creation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people”(v.1-4) This not only serves to us as a reminder that we are God’s creation but shifts our view to the living Christ, the living, breathing, out of the cattle stall Christ. And very quickly, the author brings us to John the Baptist to direct us to the purpose. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (v.5-8).

A new light has come, an enlightenment that God has breathed into a man to show us our potential. I have said it before on this blog and I will say it again. I believe that the reason that God came to us in Christ was not to offer us a new box to try and fit ourselves into, to wrap up nicely with a pretty red bow. Christ came to break the mold. Jesus didn’t stay in the stable for very long because there wasn’t enough room for what he was about to do.

The church at the time of Jesus was different than what we know sitting in our pews on Sunday mornings today. It had been a way for people to connect to God through tradition, temple, laws, and gave a model for how Jews should think, talk, act and live. Hmm, wait… I guess it doesn’t sound so different than some of the churches we attend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a tradition type of girl. I like my liturgy and my prewritten prayers, I like the movement and the ease of it all. But its an easy box to keep yourself in if you’re not careful. It’s easy to get set in your ways and to continue forcing yourself into a set of beliefs that spoon feeds you, gives you a step by step program to live your life, and never question or wrestle with any of it.

Jesus didn’t come to reinforce the law, or even to bring a new conformity. I know this could be argued, its kind of a controversial thought to think. But I don’t think Jesus strayed away from controversy. Because look at the purpose of Jesus that the author of John gives us starting in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.”

Wait… What was that? “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace?” (v. 16). We have ALL received. This is the purpose, this is the meaning of Jesus, this is the reason. Jesus came to enlighten us to the gift, not given to us in the manger but the gift given to us through grace of God and shown to us on the cross.

Yeah I know this is mind boggling, its scandalous, and its tough to wrap your brain around. But I believe that God came into flesh to show us that he is meeting us where we are. And that it is at this place, just as we are, that we meet Jesus. The living, the breathing, out of the manger Christ. If we come to Jesus this Christmas just as we are, just as we were created to be, the potential is life changing, its freeing.

Or wait… even greater: what if we came to others just as they are, just as they were created to be, with the love and the grace that Jesus showed us is not only possible, but has been given for us all? It’s freeing, the potential is life changing, its its mind boggling, scandalous, its tough to wrap our brains around, its grace upon grace.

Shout out to Liz Brown!

Hey Liz Brown!
This is your shout out!
Thanks for reading my blog! A little Jessica bird told me!

Words are Windows (or They're Walls)

I feel so sentenced by your words,
I feel so judged and sent away,
Before I go I've got to know,
Is that what you mean to say?

Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?

Words are windows, or they're walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.

There are things I need to say,
Things that means o much to me,
If my words don't make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?

If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn't care,
Try to listen through my words,
To the feelings that we share.

-Ruth Bebermeyer-

The Complexity of Connection

So I'm reading, well rereading this book called, "The Complexity of Connection". It's a collection of writings from the Sone Center's Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. My therapist recommended it to me when I was going through similar feelings that my last post described earlier this year.

The book is basically presenting this Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT). This idea suggests that all growth occurs in connection and that all people yearn for connection, and that growth-fostering relationships are created through mutual empathy and mutual empowerment.

At the beginning of the book Miller describes five good things that make up a growth-fostering relationship: 1) increased zest (vitality), 2) increased ability to take action (empowerment) 3) increased clarity (a clearer picture of one's self, the other, and the relationship), 4) increased sense of worth, and 5) a desire for relationships beyond that particular relationship. "These five good things describe the outcomes of growth-fostering relationships, that is, the outcomes when growth occurs through mutual empowerment and mutual empathy; we grow not toward separation, but toward greater mutuality and empathic possibility."

Today I was reading the section on "Relational Competence". And I realized I'm not very competent when it comes to relationships, at least in this model. "The capacity to move another person, to effect a change in a relationship, or effect the well-being of all participants in the relationship might be called relational competence." (15). But another way that Baker talks about relational competence is the ability to participate in a growth-fostering relationship, to move someone, to be in touch with our feelings and our own hearts that we touch the hearts of others and both people are able to grow.

Here's what it involves:
1. Movement toward mutuality and mutual empathy (caring and learning flows both ways), where empathy expands for bot self and other.
2. The development of anticipatory empathy, noticing and caring about our impact on others.
3. Being open to being influenced.
4. Enjoying relational curiosity.
5. Experiencing vulnerability as inevitable and a place of potential growth rather than danger.
6. Creating good connection rather than exercising power over others as the path of growth.

So after all of those big words... Here's my assumption of it all...
I (as an individual) don't foster growth-fostering relationships. I've been hurt before, I've been put in situations where now everything in my body and my heart tells me to protect myself from future hurt. But I want a healthy relationship, I want to be able to create something wonderful outside of myself with someone else who wants the same thing. And most especially now with this wonderful person in my life, I want to make this work more than any other, and I refuse for this to end because of something that I could have worked on or improved on.

To do this I'm going to make my individual focus on the 6 signs of relational competence. And my relationship focus on the 5 signs of a growth-fostering relationship. But I think before I slice off more than I can chew I will work on myself first and see how it goes working with someone else. Who knows maybe the work I do on myself will spill over and automatically revamp my relationships across the board. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

So I've identified what I'm going to try doing but I know I have to have a plan of action for each of those steps. So more to come on that I suppose. I already know I'm going to have a hard time with number 5(vulnerability) and 6(exercising power).
I've got to do it right this time! I've got to change how I interact in this world. It's becoming exhausting.

Why Can't I be NORMAL?!!??!

This was my cry last night. Literally… I was crying this.

I’ve become pretty aware of myself lately, about what I do when I feel hurt, when I feel backed into a corner, and especially when I feel abandoned or the threat of being abandoned. I don’t know why, where it comes from, or if I can even change it, but I always, always, ALWAYS hurt the people I love the most. If I feel that you are going to hurt me, or even just the chance that you might in the future, I’m going to do everything possible to make you feel hurt before me.

Now mind you, being aware of this doesn’t stop me from doing it. Which makes it even more terrible. I’ve got this amazing girl friend, she’s my best friend, she creates in me a spirit that I have never felt or known, she amazes me with her love and the life that she lives that I am just honored to be a part of it. But I crush her, I hurt her, I get angry at the tiniest things that in the big scheme of things don’t matter. I don’t love her like she deserves to be loved. She deserves the world’s best girl, she deserves the world, she at least deserves respect, and for some reason its really hard for me to give that to her.

Its not just her, its everyone. My family, friends, lovers, coworkers. I’ve learned to keep people at a distance because I am aware of my temper and my way of working in this world. I don’t want you to get too close because I know you will eventually hurt me and so I’m not going to let you do that unless you can convince me it’s a good idea.

I take everything to be so personal and read into the smallest detail. It sucks. I just want to be normal! I just want to be able to go through life without analyzing someone’s motives and actions. I just want to be able to live life differently than this!

I’m really trying to work on it, but I’m so frustrated at trying that its starting to convince me that this is just who I am, and to me that sucks. I don’t want this to be who I am, because eventually I will be a lonely person with no friends, no family and no lover because I will have run them off. But I’m not giving up, I’m going to keep trying no matter how weary I feel. I feel like that’s the only thing I can do right now, I don’t want to lose her because I didn’t try.

So far my plan of attack is to slow down my outlook on life. I’m going to try and start my day off with meditating/praying/checking out, whatever you call it. I think if I get my mind set and my heart set on track at the beginning of the day hopefully it will help. I’m also going to start journaling more to get my thoughts, frustrations, ideas out without hurting others. So far those are my only ideas, so if you’ve got any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Advent Conspiracy

A Service of Communion for Advent

This was our service of communion on Sunday.
I thought these words were so beautiful and timely.
It was nice to be able to get out of the routine of saying the normal UMC liturgy.

My pastor Sid at Trinity UMC and Christine Kraemer wrote this.

Let me know your thoughts on the words.

Call to Communion

Leader: Advent is the season of the longest night, the Solstice. We watch, we stir a little in anxiety; under the cover of darkness we await the rebirth of the sun, which after its long period of waning will begin to wax again. Though we shiver with the cold of winter, we rest easy in the knowledge that the light will return. We meet today to share a ritual of hope and peace, in Jesus Christ.

The Great Thanksgiving
Leader: The Creator is with us!

All: We open our hearts to God's Spirit. We rejoice to give thanks to our God.

Leader: Holy One, throughout the turn of the seasons you remain steadfast. In the depths of our suffering, you suffer with us; in the heights of our joy, you share in our pleasure. Creator of earth, air, fire, and water, we celebrate the creation that is your body. In the faces of those around us0 and in this season we especially look into the face of the stranger, who often has no place in the inn- in our own faces in the mirror, and in all living creatures, we see your face. By your power and presence, you transform us; we become prophets and makers of justice, bearers of your message of truth and beauty to all the world. And so, with all Being, we raise our voices in your praise:

All: Holy, Holy, Holy One, Source of Life and Love, all that is blazes with your glory. Your light breaks into the darkness, and darkness is as light to you.

Leader: Blessed are you, and blessed is the Child of Humanity, called Jesus, who came amongst us to proclaim liberation and wholeness. Jesus came to break all bonds, to shatter the chains of oppression that hold us in captivity; he healed the sick, gave food to the poor, and ate with those that society rejected to show that God's table is open to all. Through his suffering, death and resurrection he proclaimed the victory of love over death. O God, by your power of compassion and justice you gave birth to a new community to embody the continuing presence of Christ in the world. When we break the bread and share the cup, we do so to remember Jesus Christ, and to affirm that your acceptance is poured out for all.

Words of Institution

Leader: The seasons turn and the earth is chill and hard. the sun shines wanly in the sky, and we anxiously await the rebirth of the light. We take this meal, and remember the promise of transformation:

All: That which waxes must also wane; Christ has died. But that which wanes shall also wax again: Christ is risen and shall return!


Leader: Holy One, let your spirit well up in us and in these gifts of bread and wine. Together we pray in the words of St. Teresa of Avila:


All: Christ has no body now on earth but ours;
No hands but ours. Ours are the eyes
Through which Christ's compassion to the world looks out;
Ours are the feet with which Christ goes about doing good;
Ours are the hands with which Christ blesses now.

Sharing of the Bread and Cup

Prayer after communion
Leader: Mother God, we call to you out of winter.
All: The light is coming! The sun will be reborn!
Leader: Father God, we call to you out of stillness.
All: The light is coming! The sun will be reborn!
Leader: Creator God, we call to you with desperate hope.
All: The light is coming! The sun will be reborn!
Leader: O Holy One, we greet your Sun with gladness;
with how much more joy shall we greet you Child!
We come before you as your people of hope and peace.
All: Alleluia! Amen.