by
Dr. Jaye Reviere
Here is a quote I, as a transgendered person, find deeply comforting, especially when I consider the still generalized rejection we face in the Church and in the rest of society. I think it puts things in a distinctly different perspective than most of us have considered.
" The God who is the Ground of Being cannot be owned. God is a universal presence undergirding all of life. God does not bless and curse individuals according to an imposed prescription of conduct. God, the source of life, calls us all to live fully. God, the source of love, calls us to have the courage to be ourselves. So when we live, love, and have the courage to be, we are engaged in worship, we are expanding our humanity, we are breaking out of our barriers."
This is the epilog of Bishop John Shelby Spong's new book: "Why The Church Must Change Or Die" --- Powerful, insightful, radical and very deeply provocative, destined to make a lot of people do some really deep thinking.
It encourages me to BE. To be who, to be how, to be what God ~ clearly designed me to be. This is wonderfully freeing, wonderfully enriching, and wonderfully an experience of the very reality of the Ground of my Being both imminent and transcendent, both individually and uniquely within and concurrently universally external thus available to all in a mystery which my mind cannot fathom, but the experience of which is so real it cannot be denied.
I even think there's a distinct possibility, if not a probability that so many who are created differently are also gifted with the capacity to think, to challenge, and to consider that which has not been considered are, in fact, created differently so we will be motivated to think, to challenge, and to consider as we seek to find, to develop, to experience, and to live within the experience of God within. Is it not then, if this thesis be correct, an act of worship for a transgendered person to experience, to express, and to live her or his transgenderality?
