Gund Bear

I was a pretty imaginative child. I created other worlds in which my legos, stuffed animals and bike would come to life! I created castles and magical worlds where anything could happen, and everything did. I fought lions, and dragons, saved damsel’s in distress on my trusty steed lightning. I created dream houses with my legos where money was never a problem and toppled over towers could always be fixed. And my best buddy Gund Bear and I would see all of the world in our ship, (a rounded back chair that was placed on its side so I could rock like a real ship).

Gund Bear was my best friend and in many respects still is. I know this is quite confessional of me, but when I feel upset, sick, or angry he’s who I still run to. I just want to go lay in bed and hold my childhood bear. He’s been through it all with me, we’ve traveled the world together, seen changes in each other and still have remained buddies through it all. I know that it sounds quite ridiculous that I’m talking about a bear, but it’s the idea of this other friend that I created for myself when I was a child that still remains with me today, and for that friend I am grateful. I learned how to communicate my feelings with him, how to share, how to be loyal and how to imagine. In him I found a good listener, loyalty, an adventure and always a nice soft hug.
I know it’s a bit odd that when I look back on my childhood and think about my closest friends I think of a bear, but I know I would be a totally different person if the little brown bear hadn’t come into my life.

I'm getting better!

So our salsa class is going well!

Last night I felt like I did a lot better with the things I've been working on.
1. Confidence
2. Fluidity
3. Having fun!

I'm a very insecure person, it's taken me awhile to admit that about myself. So learning the leader part in dance class has been a challenge for me. You HAVE TO BE CONFIDENT! It is the success of the dance! So last night I told myself that I was just going to have confidence and act like I knew what I was doing and it worked!

I'm also a very rigid dancer. I'm a white, female version of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, and I haven't found my oil can yet. The lower half of my body doesn't bend, and sway like the majority of dancers out there, it just doesn't do it on its own. So I have been working on getting those joints moving to the beat!

Along with the confidence factor the fun factor is very closely tied. In order for me to have fun I have to feel confident that I'm doing well, otherwise, I'm too distracted to have fun. Last night was great, I danced with each partner and tried to make conversation with them while we were dancing. It was nice and I think each of them had a nice time!

I even had one lady tell me to "Work your magic britt!" :) I guess I'm turning into a salsa afficianado! Slowly but surely!

You are all welcome to join us for our Salsa Night Out this Friday night at Copa in Austin! We'll be arriving at 8:30 for the free lesson!

Working out some thoughts

I belong to two different groups that meet weekly and something interesting happened in both groups this week.

Both sets of groups are made up of older women, ranging from about 10 years older than Jessica and myself to about 40 years older. It makes for interesting experiences and conversation that's for sure. But something rubbed me the wrong way this week:

At both events the women remarked to Jessica and me about how much harder they had it coming out with their sexual orientation than we did. They said things like, "You guys are just too young to realize how hard it is." "At least you aren't fearing that you are going to be arrested when you are in a club." "Well when we were growing up it was much harder than you have it because there wasn't a gay community."

I don't want to diminish the experience that these women had growing up, becoming aware of their identity, and coming out. Yes, the ones that came before me helped pave the way for me to be out and be myself. Yes, it must have been very hard not having much of a community to have support, it must have been hard to be in fear of being arrested, beaten or killed. I will never diminish and make light of the history that has given me the few freedoms that I have as a gay woman today.

But after these comments I still put up a guard. I felt like my experience and battles that I have gone through were diminished by these women, like they weren't as fiercely fought. I felt like they made an assumption about what my coming out experience has been like for me and they then took that assumption and compared it to their own and threw it back at me to let me know that my life would never be as hard as they have had it. And many times, yes they have had it harder than I have. But please don't diminish my experience before you get to know me and my story. And please don't assume that I wouldn't want to listen and learn from all of the battles that you have been through.

I feel confused and bad feeling this way. Is their hostility directed towards me? Is it directed towards this country that has made it this hard for us all to live as equals? Should I just take what they say with a grain of salt, realizing that I will never have it as hard as they do, learning from their history and their personal struggles? Should I stand up for myself and give them understanding that my experience has been hard too? Is this not even about them and what they are saying, but about me and where my reaction is coming from?

Its kind of funny, it's almost easier talking about my identity as a gay woman with straight people than it is with other LGBTQ people. I guess maybe when I speak to straight individuals I can have much of the same power that those women had over me. HMMM Epiphany. I must be in much of the same position of power.

I guess the moral of my story is: get to know someone and realize that their experience and hardships with life are relative. Don't diminish their trials and battles, and don't assume that they aren't grateful and feel blessed for the one's that came before them to make the load a bit lighter.

Thoughts anyone?

I remember why I hated Middle School!

Today was my first day leading groups at a Pflugerville middle school. And oh.... my... word.... I thought I had blocked it completely from my mind, but I now remember why I hated middle school.

For Real.

I have 3 groups of 6th, 7th and 8th grade girls from 8:00 am to 11:00 am. The age range with the most drama, the most hormones, and the most attitude. 3 things that I have no patience with. I think that this semester will truly test my patience and strengthen my character, or it will kill me. :o

Middle school was awkward for me. I was smaller than everyone, kind of nerdy (although I wasn't that great of a student), and everyone seemed to either use me or pick on me. My 'friends' used to catch me right after carpool and tie my shoelaces to the handicap parking sign around the corner from the gym. This would cause me to be late to athletics. They would also deem random days "Pick on Britt Days." This would entail lots of tickling, lots of snapping of bra straps in class, and lots of teasing when a cute high school boy would walk into history so my face would turn red. Thank God I didn't come out in middle school! I really would have gotten it.

So when I come into my new middle school I think I still carry some fear, not to mention they all look like college students in middle school now, and have experienced just as much sometimes. I couldn't seem to find the right middle ground to meet them, and it frustrated me. I hope to really make an impact on this group. I want to help them to learn what a healthy relationship looks like and that they should only expect and accept the best. They deserve to be treated like queens and respected like dignitaries by men.

Its going to be a really tough semester. I'm nervous and fearful, but hopefully courage and confidence will come soon. Otherwise they are going to walk all over me!

Dancing with the stars here we come!

So I'm really excited!

Jessica and I have joined a salsa class!! Its a same sex partner friendly class, which has its good qualities and its bad qualities.

Good Qualities:
1) They are promoting equality and open mindedness.
2) We get to meet people who are similar to us.
3) I have the best dancing partner out the entire class.

Bad Qualities:
1) This is my first time leading. I'm not that great yet, so there is a lot of stopping to find the beat.
2) We are the youngest couple in the class by far. I danced with a lady who was my grandmother's age and she was giving me googly eyes.
3) There are lots of ladies who are just as bad at following as I am at leading so my toes hurt.

I'm just kidding about the bad qualities, the class is a blast! I'm so excited that we are doing this together and its fun to learn. I did this class because Jessica is the such a wonderful dancer, its hard to keep up with her and to muster up enough courage to even ask her to dance :) So I wanted to get better at partner dancing so when we go out on the town I don't look like a complete fool with her.

Now this lack of skill in dance isn't all my fault. I mean I've got all the parts to shake my money maker. Believe me, I've got the hips, the butt and the big feet. I attribute it to few different things.

1. I was a tomboy as a kid. We had community dances when I was in elementary school but I was soooo not interested when I was that age. I went to play basketball with the boys and to down as much free sugar as I could.

2. My middle school and high school years were filled with a total of 2 dances! We weren't allowed to have dancing at my school, its a grand sin supposedly. Huh, who knew that when David danced God was frowning. So much of this is due to what I like to call "The Tin Man Syndrome". My dancin parts haven't had any practice, the oil can hasn't seen them as much as it should have.

3. I lack rhythm. Now this is my fault. For some reason I hear different beats and sounds that are not in the song being played. It's like I'm moving to a completely different tune.

Do these things stop me from shakin my groove thang tho? Heck No! I looove to dance! You thought Ellen DeGeneres was the only white girl loved to dance that much... Well you've met her match! I love it! I love it! I love it! Often I'll break out in many of a Target, Kohl's, or dentist office. I don't even need a song, many times I'll just ask Jess to dance when there is no music playing. I can't stop myself!

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.