Listening to the Heart of UUP
Worship associates: Diana Spaulding and Ellen BeelerWhat do we discover when we listen deeply to each other? Our Listening Campaign is revealing the hopes and dreams at the heart of UUP. A story of longing, creativity, and trust is emerging and will evolve further during the service. The roots of the UUP tree are anchored firmly, the trunk is straight, branches are strengthening, leaves are unfurling, and many buds are set to flower. Come, be a part of the story. Come, let us worship together. ]]> http://www.uupetaluma.org/sunday-february-7-1030-a-m/feed/ 0 http://www.uupetaluma.org/sunday-january-31/ http://www.uupetaluma.org/sunday-january-31/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:03:50 +0000 admin http://www.uupetaluma.org/sunday-january-31/ “Healing Circles”
Worship Leaders: Jan Ogren, Dean Watson & Jodi Boyle

Young and old will gather together for a time of gratitude and healing. Jan Ogren and Dean Watson, who apprenticed with a Mescalero Apache Medicine Man, will guide the community in setting up a medicine circle and lead us in four healing meditations: Gratitude, Healing for Self, Taking in Others for Healing, Bringing Others Back Out. This will be the second year UUP has begun the new year with this ceremony.

Chairs and floor seating available. If you are able to bring a pillow or blankets to accommodate those who want to sit on the floor, that would be most appreciated.

Good Morning! It’s Time to Spring Forward! Today is a day of our spiritual vision path intersecting with our practical needs. Over the past few months I’ve had quite a bit of time to think about how to integrate my spiritual thoughts with my practical concerns for UUP, and it isn’t always easy to articulate that blending of thought in a seamless manner. We just aren’t used to the vocabulary of those subjects intermingling and serving each other. But I kept coming back to the same point — why am I here at UUP and why do I wish to serve? What do I think I can do to help? What will I do to live my beliefs beyond the insularity of my home and the kids’ school, and beyond the fuzzy warm feeling of a good Sunday morning service. Some of these answers lie within my own life experience and those of my family. Other answers are found in the inherent character of this place of worship and all of you, its congregants. Today, I hope to describe some of what has inspired me to be here in this moment at this podium, and report more on the insightful comments of our Visioning Sunday and follow-up survey. Our decidedly individualistic congregation is thinking more in accord than many of us may have anticipated!

But first, some UUP history: Those of us who are fairly new to UUP may wonder about how it got started. Well, in 2001 the enterprising minds of KC Greaney, Christian Boatsman, Diana Spaulding, David Dodd, Barbara Marlin-Coole and Walter Coole, all of whom were members at the Unitarian Universalists of Marin, decided to found a UU fellowship in Petaluma with their “unchurched” friends, Susan Sanford and Steve McMillan. Initially, thoughts of creating a desirable spiritual house of worship in Petaluma were as much a matter of driving less as creating a new spiritual facet to this community. But with meetings in various living rooms generating enthusiasm and interest, a “Nuts and Bolts” committee succeeded by the end of the Summer 2002 to develop a group that voted to constitute itself, develop bylaws and start renting space. By October of that year, they were occupying the Petaluma Women’s Club with a Covenanting Sunday service, and a startup Board and Worship Associates group. March of 2003 found a proud UUP group entering the Butter and Eggs Parade with a float and marching contingent of children chanting “Who are We? UUP!!!” securing a first place prize. In early 2004, UUP applied for membership in the Unitarian Universalists Association of Congregations with a membership of well over 30 and recognition at the 2004 General Assembly in Long Beach. That same year, UUP hired a Director of Religious Education, prioritizing our children’s program, and an administrative assistant. That’s the précis history.

But why have we succeeded thus far?

Well, I can’t speak as far back as 2002 at UUP, but I can speak to what I have discovered about myself and this congregation. For one thing, I am continually impressed with the amount of dedication, love and sheer fortitude the first members of this community have shared with all of us. I cannot imagine juggling the responsibilities of young children, work, and all the time, effort, and yes, money, that was required by so few people to get UUP started. If ever a few people could make a difference in others’ lives, these individuals proved it! For me and my family, we were immediately struck by the warmth of the gatherings, the intellectual diversity of the services, the ease with which the children and adults mingled in a meaningful and respectful manner, and the anticipation of each Sunday’s service that is so dependent on our direct participation. No sitting on your hat here! Everyone can and does get involved — whether it’s music, bagels, a reading, a personal reflection, sermon, or participatory activity.

Our family was looking for a spiritual home outside of and bigger than our own home and finding UUP was its own revelation. I’ve spoken before about my background as a third generation Unitarian of large congregations, but being part of UUP is a different challenge and reward. Like those small classes in the one-room schoolhouse, you can’t hide behind your desk and forget your homework here. You can’t disappear into the crowd in the hallway either. So, it makes commitment of any sort all that more meaningful to me — every word I say and every deed I do, or do not do, at UUP has a direct impact on all of us, and I can see that directly. At the same time, there is so much warmth and understanding of the human condition here — real compassion in a world that often forgets the meaning of that word — that there is no room for either ecclesiastical guilt or group-think here either. It was OK that I had to table some of my involvement to take care of sick children or juggle a family work schedule. Everyone at UUP is glad to see you when you can come. And when you are asked to serve in some capacity, it is a gift to do so. Here is an example:

When David Dodd first asked me to sing and we found a good piece for a service, I discovered that the old performing nerves were melting away from the love of being here, with you, sharing the joy or beauty or sadness or thoughtfulness of the music. I learned to love to sing for others again. Every time I am able to sing for you, I receive a gift from you — the congregation. Your warmth and kindness, your love of the music, your smiles and sometimes tears are the best appreciation I can receive.

When my children happily joined Marlene and Sharon, making new friends of all ages, I was so pleased. Because I remember my “church friends” and how important they became to me, even if we only saw each other once a week, especially at the most troubling and troublesome periods of adolescence. This is the safe place for youth to ask and ponder those difficult questions about what it means to be human when they want an arena apart from their parents. I still keep in touch with some of my old “church friends” and my old Sunday School teacher, too. And then came the day that I heard Powell and Ava quietly singing in the back of the car, “God is Love, and whoever abides in love, abides in God,” — the song Sharon taught them. They could feel and understand that expression, and have a comfortable, surprisingly complex conversation with me about whether there really is a God, does it matter, and what does that mean, anyway? Phew. This was a wonderful gift to our family.

A couple of months ago, I spoke about the Stone Soup Sunday that we attended before becoming members, and that unique first moment where all the joy and love and perhaps sadness of the holidays coalesced in our always incredibly tasty meal, which we shared on a rainy Sunday afternoon with a homeless man taking shelter on our steps. Devan and I turned to each other that day and said, “we have to become a part of this and support it. UUP is important for our community to have and we can’t imagine not having this place in our lives anymore.”

So we signed the book and made our first financial commitment to UUP. And every year the kids get older, their grandparents get older, and we two encounter new chapters in our lives, we find ourselves turning more and more to UUP and the words, thoughts, deeds and people of this congregation. We’ve dealt with death in the family, and there was Meredith’s Day of the Dead service, truly one of the most compassionate, lovely, meaningful Unitarian services I have ever been a part of. That tradition helped our family talk about other deaths later on when my children were part of their great-grandmother’s memorial service and when they felt the stress of their mother through their grandfather’s heart surgery. We’ve shared in the collective joy of our drumming circle, enthusiastically letting our pagan selves emerge and seeing with delight that same glint in the eye of those sharing our circle — no matter what the age. We’ve been inspired by the words of members who have shared their spiritual journey to UUP in “This I believe” sermons, often provoking conversation on our darkened porch or living room couch late at night. And I will forever thank T for introducing me to a greater appreciation for Rumi. These few encounters and more than I could list here have enriched our lives so much — you are all a part of this great gift.

A little less than a year ago now, I became a board member. This was daunting to me as I had never held that position before in any congregation and wondered if I had enough to offer. But whatever skills or new energy I may be bringing to the table, I have learned ten times more from the individuals I am coming to know and understand a bit. Meetings are not always easy, but rarely have I ever been part of a group where our individual foibles, rather than being criticized or judged, are reflected over in a serious compassionate manner. We try to help each other in whatever way we can. We appreciate each other’s strengths and gifts and encourage the best in us in a quiet way. For the short time I was on the R.E. Committee I felt that same aura there. Maybe this trait is one of the unifying factors of a Unitarian Universalist community that makes us the unique liberal religion we are. But I think it has something to do with the personal makeup of this congregation that makes UUP unique unto itself as well.

And now we are here in the Spring of 2009 — some eight years from those first conversations about creating UUP. We have 72 members of our congregation and a population of children that many UU congregations marvel at. We have started to move beyond our “share the plate” Sunday efforts to positively affect our community through various activities like the Carbon Ring Circles and most particularly, the new Social Responsibility Committee — a fast-growing and highly desired step by the majority of the congregation. Our Visioning Sunday and follow-up survey revealed several wishes for UUP that were shared by most of us. First and foremost the desire to have a permanent ministerial presence, either quarter-time or half-time to start, followed by two close seconds for a building of our own, and an expanded social responsibility committee with heavier involvement in bettering our community and world. As always, R.E. programs play an important role to many of us, not just for youth, but for adults as well. You have all probably seen the email of this past Wednesday with our survey results, but I’d like to leave you with a few comments, some from the survey and some from the Visioning Sunday as we end our service here today — these are by no means complete:

On Worship:
# More intercultural experiences — perhaps a youth intercultural exchange program
# A good Humor Sunday, with personal stories that are happy or humorous.
# We need animals in the service, more music, more dancing, more hugs
# More delving into other religious thought — such as Shinto, Buddhism, Taoism
# Teens comfortable participating regularly as part of the main service
# A child’s sermon or comment on the weekly UUP sermon topic

On Community:
# An active Social Responsibility Committee
# A supportive Caring Committee
# More diversity in our UUP congregation
# A letter-writing group for social action
# Support for each other outside of UUP at other events and life moments
# Co-layman counselors and advisors available when individuals need to talk and have support
# A community garden for the hungry

On a Minister:
# A minister with a prophetic voice and a vision of justice, love and intellect
# A minister who works well with the worship committee, several of whom are studying to become ministers
# A minister who plays a lead role in the community
# A minister assisting lay leaders in providing ongoing adult RE classes
# A pastoral presence that supports and nurtures our work and challenges us to new vistas.
# And finally, please remember that a minister cannot solve all problems or make everything at UUP right — that is up to us.

Now, these are only a few comments and suggestions, but they are yours. As we conclude, please take your vision for UUP and help make it a reality through your financial commitment and the sharing of your time and talents with us — let’s Spring Forward together to create our UUP that will grow with us and help us grow. Become a greater part of our community, warm yourself at our chalice, relight it at home and bring it back with you shining brighter with the light we all have and see the glow of our congregational presence spread warmly throughout our community.

“Imagine a story that moves the heavens to wax rhapsodic and you, like a love drunk fool to join in and mean every word of it…”

Some of this material is based upon the book The First Christmas by Marcus J. Borg and John D. Crossan

What I will attempt to do this morning is take an exegetical look at the Christmas story as found in Luke (Matthew has a very different account, which, in the interest of time, we will not try to examine.) An exegetical approach to a passage of scripture looks at, among other things, authorship, time, geography, intent and audience with a careful examination of each. I hope that by so doing we will gain a better, deeper and richer understanding of these wearily well known passages of Christian scripture and that as a result, Christmas might become more meaningful (or at least, more tolerable.) I also want to mine them for important insights into our own life and times and, if the gods are really happy with me, I hope I might inspire you. Now, any of you who have engaged in the exegesis of an ancient text will be glad and grateful to hear that I will not try to render a thorough treatment of these passages from Luke, partly for fear the sheer tedium would cause you to rise up and stone me with your hymnals or else, you would wake up several hours later drooling with cricks in your necks, as I did more times than I wish to admit in seminary. For this approach, I am relying heavily on and quoting extensively from a book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan modestly entitled The First Christmas.

The birth stories found in Matthew and Luke were probably composed late in the development of early Christianity, during the 80s and 90s of the first century, though they contain bits and pieces of earlier material, most notably the hymn sung by Mary as well as several other hymns. In addition to not being the earliest Christian writings, evidence suggests they were not of major importance in early Christianity. Given their lack of attention by, most notably, Paul, Mark and John, as well as the glaring differences between Matthew and Luke’s accounts, plus the numerous indisputable errors of historical facts found in them, they are almost certainly not historical accounts of the birth of Jesus. So what are they then?

To answer this question I need you to examine something we all too often share with religious fundamentalists, namely, the failure to be conscious of our presuppositions. The Enlightenment, which began in the 17th century, generated an understanding of truth as that which can be empirically verified and what can be verified in this manner are, of course, facts. According to this way of thinking, if something isn’t factual, it isn’t true. The contemporary scholar of religion, Huston Smith, calls this “fact fundamentalism.” That’s why many Christianists insist that the accounts of creation in Genesis must be taken literally, because to do otherwise would make them untrue. It is also why some people, perhaps some of you here this morning, reject the Bible, because a great deal of it isn’t factual and, therefore, by this way of thinking, cannot be true. Both are guilty of fact fundamentalism, and this view of truth and reality is so deeply ingrained in all of us, fundamentalists and skeptics alike, that it hard to recognize it for what it is: a presupposition.

Furthermore, within the modern mind, what is unquestionably real is the space-time universe of matter and energy operating within natural laws of cause and effect. We have internalized this worldview by simply growing up in the modern world; it is what we have been socialized into.

This was not (and is not) true of the non-modern mind. A story that I think illustrates this poignantly is about Ishi, the last member of one of California’s indigenous peoples. When anthropologists asked Ishi to describe life in his tribe, he proceeded to tell them a two hour story of wood duck, because to the non-modern mind of Ishi, the story of wood duck best told what life was, and, almost certainly more to the point, what it meant.

Luke and Matthew (and, for that matter, all the other authors of the Bible) did not equate fact with truth, and, therefore, were not at all concerned with our western, modernist notion of accuracy. Rather, they were interested in meaning and in the elucidation of big “T” Truth. “Facts” were important only in service of The Truth.

That’s why what are obvious “contradictions” when viewed from the presuppositions of modern thought, between Matthew and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are not contradictions at all. For each, the birth story was illustrative of who Jesus was and what his coming meant.

Think about the parable of the Good Samaritan, which I told the children. That this story is not at all historical does nothing to diminish its truth. The value of the story, its authenticity and authority are not in whether or not it actually happened, but rather in its meaning. It is a parable, a metaphor, and metaphorical language is employed when something has more-than-literal meaning. It is language that carries a surplus of meaning, supersaturated language, as it were.

The parables Jesus told were designed to illustrate the nature of God and the meaning of life, and so the early Christians likewise told parables about Jesus. And just as Jesus told subversive stories about God (that is, after all, what got him killed) his disciples told subversive stories about him. The story of his birth is just such a story.

I can just say September 11, or 9/11, and everyone here, including most, if not all, of the children over 5, can tell me the significance of that date. On that day, a handful of dedicated religious fundamentalists shaped, for good and for ill, the very identity of the most powerful nation on earth. In the time of Jesus, an event even more powerful took place. I say more powerful, because this event directly affected the lives of every person, from the oldest to the youngest, from the most powerful to the lowliest, an event that would be burned into the personal and collective memory of the tiny nation of Israel so deeply it is still remembered some 2000 years later. It was the day the Romans came. You cannot understand and appreciate Luke without recognizing the enormity of this event.

After almost a hundred years of social unrest and 20 years of interminable civil war, Octavian, the Augustus-to-be, in the year 31, BCE, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra in the famous naval battle at Cape Actium thereby saving the Roman Empire and restoring peace to the Mediterranean, the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, which would last for over 2 centuries.

As a result of this great achievement, Caesar Augustus was said to have brought “gospel,” “good news,” to the whole world. Furthermore, his titles included Divine, Son of God, Lord, Redeemer, Liberator and Savior of the World. Do any of these titles sound familiar? To apply any of them to the newborn Jesus, as did Luke, would be either cheap comedy or high treason — and Rome was not laughing. Nor would the implications and claims implicit in the use of these royal titles have been lost on first century readers and hearers. They would have recognized immediately their seditious implications as well as the embedded questions: Who do you believe is savior of the world, Jesus or Caesar? In whom do you place your trust? To whom will you pledge your allegience? And how you answered those questions could determine whether you lived or died. Luke did not pen these words in a vacuum and as a writer, I know how carefully I choose my words — and I mostly write lies. Luke had something much more important in mind, and he would not have been cavalier in the dangerous use of these titles for Jesus.

Immediately after the battle of Actium, Octavian turned his camp into sacred ground and erected a monument upon which he inscribed a dedication to the war God, Mars, and the Sea God, Neptune, to the victory he had obtained and to the peace that had ensued. In these inscriptions, the remnants of which still remain, we see the four elements of Roman imperial theology — religion, war, victory, peace. You worship the gods, you go to war with their assistance, you are victorious with their help, and you obtain peace from their generosity. Peace comes through victory. Does that sound at all familiar? While Sarah Palin might not have known it, is this not the Bush doctrine? And in fairness, has this not been in practice the theology of the American empire since its inception?

Of course, no one has to tell us that the peace of Rome did not mean the end of war. Wars to conquer additional territory and wars to suppress insurrections continued, and from the vantage point of the conquered and oppressed, the Pax Romana looked very different. The Scotts general Calgacus as he prepared his doomed troops for battle with the legions of Rome in the later 70s or early 80s of the Christian Era said,

“Robbers of the world, now that earth fails their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea: if their enemy have wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious. Alone of mankind they covet with the same passion want as much as wealth. To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desert and they call it peace.”

An Iraqi might describe the Pax Americana in very similar terms, don’t you think?

Ideological power is the control of meaning and interpretation. Read that again, carefully. Remember the election campaign for Bush’s second term when they successfully interpreted the world to the American public as us, the U.S., against an axis of evil who had to be defeated with the help of God, and that peace could come only through victory? It is against this very theology that the birth narrative in Luke is aimed. The theology of imperialism that reigned at the time of Jesus’ birth and that still reigns in our time, that peace can come only through victory, is countered in Luke by the symphonic proclamation of the angels.

To Luke, the birth of Jesus sets forth the fundamental clash of visionary programs for our earth: the imperial vision of peace through victory and the Christian vision of peace through justice. It’s right there in the birth story.

There are many more similar comparisons, but I think you get the point. While we may have sanitized and sentimentalized the story of Jesus’ birth as told by Luke, it’s original intent was anything but sanitary and sentimental.

So what might this mean for us?

For one thing, I think it says clearly that authentic spirituality is never purely personal. It isn’t just about my own spiritual growth and development, important as that is. Authentic spirituality always does and always must have social and political applications; otherwise, it is just spiritual masturbation.

Those social and political applications (as well as the personal) are always in the service of liberation, freedom and peace through justice. And they are always characterized by good news for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized.

Believe what you will about the Christmas story, but looked at within the historical context in which it was written, you cannot deny the power of the metaphor. The baby Jesus is Savior of the World, not Augustus Caesar, emperor of Rome. The theology of empire that trusts in military might and peace through victory is countered by peace that rides in on the wings of angels and rests over the birthplace of a Jewish baby boy named Jesus. The selection by God of a couple of faithful old fools, an unwed teenage mother and her dreamer boyfriend, a helpless, homeless infant, itinerate shepherds and wayward wise men are in stark contrast to the rule and reign of the rich, the powerful, the well educated and the well connected. What is going to change our world is just such a metaphor. It won’t be more historical examples of the bankruptcy of imperial theology. There is already a bloody surplus of those. The message of peace through victory will never be discredited and discarded through polemics, complaints and arguments alone no matter how rational and reasonable. It is going to take a metaphor, a story, a parable as imaginative, compelling and radical as Luke’s to capture the collective imagination, to arch like a bolt of lightening across fear, cynicism and mistrust to a vision of a new heaven and a new earth in which mercy and compassion reign and where heavenly hosts proclaim peace on earth, peace through justice.

I love this story. Maybe it helps to be queer in a post Prop 8 world, but I can hardly read it without weeping at the beauty and power of its message, and as the years pass and my understanding of it deepens so too does my love. Knowing it the way I do makes it possible for me to sing, Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing and mean every word of it.

But then, maybe that’s not true for you. If that’s the case, I have this suggestion: imagine your own story. Image a story with a rich cast of unlikely characters, with mysterious travelers from faraway lands and a bit of magic thrown in for good measure. Imagine a story that lights up the dark places within you and your world, a story of liberation, of hope, of joy, a story that is gospel, good news, to the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized living within you and in your world. Imagine a story in which peace through justice is triumphant. Imagine a story that moves the heavens to wax rhapsodic and you, like a love drunk fool to join in and mean every word of it. Imagine such a story. Luke did.

I would like to leave you with this poem and Christmas carol written in 1849 by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Weston, Massachusetts.

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

“I believe that there is a spiritual interdependence among the various religions in the same way as there is a metaphysical interconnectedness to all reality.”

My message today is really about two things. Spiritual Independence and Spiritual Interdependence, and there is a story behind how I came on each of these topics.

During a recent Worship Associate committee meeting, I signed up to be the Worship Associate and speaker for this service. It was easy for me at least, to see why. It was one of the few weekends this summer that I have free, I’ve always like the joyous mid-summer period where the days are long, the weather warm and an enhanced sense of freedom. Furthermore, July 4th has provided me with several memorable experiences, mostly related to a sense of freedom to light things on fire and make big booms. So, I figured it would not be a problem to come up with a service topic of interest. That feeling lasted about as long as a the oohhs and ahhhs that follow an exquisite fire work explosions when one of my Worship Associate committee members cheerfully reminded me, to make sure that the service includes a spiritual element. OK, Independence and Spiritual action or thought. I can do this.

However, as I gave the topic of spiritual connection to Independence Day, more thought, one of my next reactions was “holy dogma, what have I gotten myself into.” Compared to most of our major holidays, July 4th at 231 years old, is a mere infant, and unlike holidays whose roots are based in the earth based celebrations of seasonal events which resonate with my spiritual being, Independence Day has no particular spiritual or ancient connection to the roots of my pagan worship instincts.

However, I was intrigued by the notion of exploring whether the actions of those who led the independence movement in the 1770s were in some way driven by spiritual or divine guidance. I began to wonder if I might find some spiritual connection to our Celebration of Independence Day .by studying the historical basis for our quest for independence..

Though the Fourth of July is iconic to Americans, some claim the date itself is somewhat arbitrary. New Englanders had been fighting Britain since April 1775. The first motion in the Continental Congress for independence was made on June 4, 1776. After hard debate, the Congress voted unanimously, but secretly, for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 2. This is known as the Lee Resolution.

John Adams, credited by Thomas Jefferson as the unofficial, tireless whip of the independence-minded, wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776: The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more. Rather prescient, wasn’t he? He got everything right except the date.

Although Adams was off by two days July 4, 1776 is the date on the Declaration itself. It was also the first day Philadelphians heard the official news of independence from the Continental Congress, as opposed to rumors in the street about secret votes. So, there we have it. July 4th, though somewhat arbitrary, was set as our day of declaring independence from Great Britian and over the years, July 4th has become a distinctly American celebration, complete with fireworks, music, baseball games, public events and family gatherings. But what about the spirituality associated with this important event in our history? Seems like I better first define what I mean by spirituality.

There are many forms of spirituality that exist in our society, past and present, and one could even say that everybody has their own spirituality, however buried or hidden from themselves and others. In a distilled fashion, I think of spirituality as being an awareness of a divine reality that calls an individual to a greater or higher realization. Spirituality is a personal response and commitment to reality in its deepest sense, no matter how obfuscated such universal truths may be.

Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the declaration of independence, was a man of deep religious conviction – his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business or reason for involvement. As such, he rallied against any form of religious connection to our government and is rightly credited with the separation of church and state in our nation.

Although religion does not in my view equate to spirituality, the practice of religion can certainly provide a vehicle or conduit towards spiritual enlightenment. With our appropriate separation of church and state, we are blessed by a government that for the most part doesn’t require us to follow a particular religious or spiritual path, though pardon the digression but I do have to point out that the phrase on our currency “In God We Trust” sounds pretty darn religious to me. What God? Or perhaps I should ask Which God. What about our true mother, the Goddess, and which Goddesses and Gods are being referred to by this statement “In God we Trust”?

I can’t pretend to delve into the hearts and minds of the independence movement leaders, but I suspect that Jefferson, Tomas Paine, John Adams, John Hancock and others among them felt that they were truly on a divine mission to free the colonies from an oppressive and unjust ruler. However, I don’t think that their efforts were particularly spiritual or geared towards higher realization. At best, I would say that the leaders of our Independence movement were highly spirited, enlightened, and driven to create a new union of colonies unconstrained by an outmoded style of governance. Not necessarily spiritual, but defnintely spirited.

As I worked on this message of the morning, I became more and more intrigued by the concept of spiritual interdependence. I believe that there is a spiritual interdependence among the various religions in the same way as there is a metaphysical interconnectedness to all reality. If this is indeed true, then there must be some common constructs associated with a global or interdependent spirituality, which are part of any viable tradition. What might such elements look like I wondered? To answer this, I borrow generously from the work of Brother Wayne Teasdale , a Christian Monk, author, and lecturer who identified seven clearly discernable elements of a global or interdependent spirituality. (See his work, “Spirituality as a Primary Resource in Promoting Peace”.) I will briefly touch on each of these 7 elements.

A CAPACITY TO LIVE MORALLY
The capacity to live morally or ethically is the indispensable foundation of the spiritual life in any tradition. One who is on the spiritual journey will in some deep way, be a morally committed individual.

DEEP NONVIOLENCE A deeply-rooted attitude of nonviolence is also an important aspect of spirituality. As one becomes more awake within, one also becomes gentle and sensitive without — that is in relation to others. Deep nonviolence means a non-harming that is the fruit of wisdom and compassion; it is really a form of love, and it is also a way to spread peace.

SPIRITUAL SOLIDARITY Every person who follows the call of the inner life knows there is a deep bond of human and spiritual solidarity that unites us all. It emanates from the unity of reality itself, and because of this oneness, there is also a spiritual oneness, the basis of our interdependence. At the same time, we have a spiritual solidarity with the other species and with the Earth itself. It manifests in the possibility of harmony and communion with them both.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE Genuine spirituality has a spiritual practice, the heart of spirituality which brings about the process of inner change. Spiritual practice may take the form of mature prayer, meditation, a discipline of contemplation, spiritual reading, reflection, study, work or a simple resting in the Divine. It may also involve forms of ritual and a combination of these elements. Spiritual practice will likely initiate a transformation of consciousness, will,of character and of action. One’s consciousness grows by addition of greater knowledge and awareness — especially of the material, the psychological and the spiritual dimensions of our intertwined existences.

SIMPLICITY Simplicity of life or lifestyle has for millennia in every tradition been a requirement and a sign of the genuine nature of one’s spiritual witness. “live simply so that others may simply live” Simplicity also has the direct bearing on the cultivation of detachment, and detachment facilitates growth in our spiritual lives. Living simply has taken on even more meaning today with our awareness of global environmental impacts. Is it just me, or do others feel that there has been a recent shift in our consciousness related to global warming and environmental issues — once the domain of left leaning activists, it seems to me that global environmental issues are now becoming part of our mainstream dialogue, in a large part I think because Global Warming is being felt by so many. As Ghandi recognized, we don’t need much to live and be happy; he often remarked that the Earth has sufficient resources for humankind’s needs, but not for its greeds.

SELFLESS SERVICE The transformation of the person living an intense inner life leads spontaneously to the development of a sensitivity to the needs of others. In turn, this will likely lead to the possibility of service or compassionate action. One becomes capable of thinking and acting beyond self-interest, able to discern among the needs of others what is required, based upon justice and charity. This pattern of behavior is found in every valid expression of the spiritual life.

PROPHETIC ACTION The final element of universal or interdependent spirituality is the freedom to exercise prophetic action calling for change. This may mean taking a courageous stand for others in matters relating to justice, peacemaking, economic policy, refugees, hunger, poverty, the elderly, children, the unemployed, the homeless, AIDS and other diseases as well as the whole critical issue of the environment. Prophetic action requires spiritual leadership and the courage to take a cause as your own and accept the associated risks.

In this age of spiritual interdepedence, when we have finally discovered the profoundly rich bonds of sacred community that unite us all, our global spiritual tradition must possess the ability to speak out when the occasion requires it.

I recently received an email from a friend letting me know about some global spiritual events. One of them in particular caught my interest.

It’s called Fire the Grid and appears to be based on the workings of an individual who experienced a miracle in the form of a near death drowning experience for both himself and his son. Both this man and his son, drowned. The father was revived on the spot, but the 5 year old son was declared brain dead with a less than one percent chance of making any kind of a recovery. This miracle, ensued, inspired partly by messages the individual received from the spirit world (or light beings as he calls them), and an organized procession of people who came to the hospital and literally willed the life back into the brain dead boy. I didn’t investigate the veracity of this man’s story, and it could be a construction, but since I want to believe such things, I’m going to let it ride. The miracle led him to further explore miraculous action in the form of a global consciousness project that ties in closely to my own concerns and issues.

As a trained scientist, I have realized for some time that our planet cannot sustain the demands we place on her resources. We are nearing the critical breaking point of the natural system on which we depend on for sustenance and life itself. I see two possible likely outcomes; either a massive global die off our species and an associated change in the way we inhabit our planet, or perhaps some form of outside intervention, sparked by our collective consciousness and desire to obtain assistance in our development as a species and a desire to heal our planet. I’ve always believed in the possibility if not likelyhood that there exist advanced life forms outside our solar system.

The lack of direct evidence, for such life can easily be explained by the fact that we are, on a wide scale metaphysical and spiritual level, not ready yet to accept such outside intervention. Basically, any extraterrestrial life forms roving the Universe are probably staying far away from our planet, until we get our metaphysical act together. There is another factor at play here as well. During the period of time (particularly over the last 2000 years) as we have focused on the development of our free will, we have disconnected ourselves from the universal powers that govern all existence. The Fire The Grid effort is geared towards creating a global consciousness event with the intention of showing the forces and powers outside our currently constrained reality, that we are not only ready for, but desire their assistance in managing our survival and reconnecting us to the greater grid of existence. This Fire The Grid Event is scheduled to occur on Tuesday July 17th at 4:11 AM our time and involves everybody connected and enrolled to engage in a one hour meditation focused on the intention of raising our collective consciousness and bringing healing energy to our earth.

To me, the Fire The Grid effort, and a variety of other similar global consciousness events is a positive indication that we, as a collective species, are on the cusp of greater awareness and consciousness that is necessary for our spiritual development if not our survival. If there is to be any salvation in a religious sense, it’s not going to come from one particular religion or set of constructs, it will instead be through the attainment of a collective and global spiritual interdependence.

I would like to close now with some more wisdom from Brother Wayne Teasdale.

“Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage – the sage we all are, if only we could see.”

“Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I imagine such a thing would happen.”

Shortly after we purchased our home when there was still money for such things we were roofing an outbuilding that prior to our arrival had been used over the years for a chinchilla business, a machine shop and a drug dealing operation. We cleaned it, cleansed it and made it into living quarters for our nearly grown children. To guide us through the backbreaking process, we hired a handyman named Julian under whose tutelage we hammered shingles until our battered fingers could endure no more missed strokes.

As it turned out, Julian had a gay daughter, and as we talked about his daughter, he expressed a sentiment that I think is common among straight people that at least his daughter was lucky to live in a very liberal area of the country where she didn’t have to worry so much about the things that plague gays in other places. “Yes,” I agreed, “we are lucky in ways. Still,” I added, no longer willing to support this commonly held illusion, “when was the last time you saw two men walking through downtown Petaluma holding hands or two women share a lover’s kiss over a candlelight dinner in a local restaurant?” He had never noticed this, had never thought about what one takes for granted in relationships between straight couples, and it shook his confidence a bit in the comforting illusion of Sonoma County’s liberality. It is hard for most people to recognize the signs of homophobia that are, in fact, everywhere and very much visible and audible to those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear, for those of us who cannot afford the luxury of blissful ignorance.

So in honor of June as Gay Pride month, I would like for those of us living in “liberal” Sonoma County to consider the presence and power of homophobia. No one will argue that at least here there is a welcome diminution of overt forms of homophobia. Ride my school bus, and you will probably not hear the word faggot used above a whisper, since it is well known that almost nothing will get you an up close and personal encounter with the freakishly tall bus driver faster than that word. The students have now substituted the word “gay,” which they use in ways just as pejorative though considerably less easily confronted. And the movie Brokeback Mountain added to the arsenal of insults, such as “we don’t want any Brokeback Mountain going on back there,” which I heard a high school boy’s coach say jokingly to the team members in the back of the bus assuming, of course, that there would be no gay or questioning students on his athletic team who might find this remark offensive and intimidating, an assumption that is almost certainly false. And overt gay bashings are thankfully much less common, since several successful lawsuits filed by victims have cost school districts around the country tens of thousands of dollars. This absence of overt homophobia can lead some to conclude that it doesn’t exist or if it does, only at the fringe of society. Oh that it were so.

Allow me to illustrate.

You may have seen but not recognized a victim of homophobia if you saw a blonde headed boy walking home on Bodega Ave. Chris, from the jr. high has a year’s pass to ride my bus costing $350, yet the only time he rides is when the weather is really bad or else he has to get home fast. Otherwise he walks, and I know it’s over two miles, since bus transportation is not provided regular ed students who live closer to the school than two miles. You see, Chris is slightly built, shy, has a beautiful face with fine features and lovely wavy blonde hair cut short but stylish, which is to say, Chris is gender nonconforming simply by virtue of his appearance. While I cannot know this for sure, I think Chris prefers to walk rather than risk the abuse heaped upon boys who are gender nonconforming by boys who chips off the old manly block, boys who have already had the femininity beaten out of them. One day as we passed the Phoenix theater on my way to the high school with a load of about 20 junior high kids, my bus suddenly exploded with jeers, groans and shouted insults. I looked over and saw what appeared to be two girls wrapped in a passionate kiss. I happened to know, however, that one of the smitten couple was not a girl, but rather a boy with a head of long, dark, gorgeous hair I would give my right arm for. God only knows what would have happened had the kissers resembled boys.

Similarly, I took a group of elementary students on a field trip to San Francisco, and we passed a bus stop billboard with the picture of two shirtless, handsome young men standing together promoting AIDS testing. Upon seeing this, the bus erupted in Ewwws, and “Look, two naked men” though, while shirtless, they were by no means naked. And you cannot tell me that those children had never seen men with their shirts off. Of course, no adult said anything, though had they made such a reaction to two people based on their race, there would have been a week long program of sensitivity training for the entire school paid for by the government.

One morning years ago, Jan, my partner and a teacher of grades 1-3 at the Montessori School, found one of her favorite students weeping. She took her aside and asked, “Zoe, what’s wrong?” Whereupon Zoe told her that she had just learned that her dad was gay. “But, Zoe,” Jan said, “there’s nothing wrong with being gay.” “I know,” Zoe replied tearfully, “but it’s my dad.”

When Caleb, my son, first started driving to Petaluma High, I let him us an old Nissan 4 wheel drive pickup that years earlier I had put a rainbow colored Celebrate Diversity bumper sticker on. While I knew it was a gay rights bumper sticker, to me it was equally about biodiversity and our need to celebrate and protect it. In that sense it was a two for one thing. One day on my way to take out the trash, I noticed that Caleb had covered the Celebrate Diversity bumper sticker with duct tape. It was shortly after I had come out full time, and it felt to me like he was trying to cover me in duct tape, and I was hurt. Recently, however, I was editing a paper Lia, his sister, wrote for one of her classes at Cal Poly. This is what Lia said: “He [Caleb] initially had no problem with the bumper sticker for he was not ashamed of our father, and he did believe in the celebration of diversity. After several counts of verbal attacks and incidents in which he was harassed for having such a sticker, he covered it with duct tape. He may as well have duct taped his mouth and the mouth of our family as well.” So Lia interprets the duct tape incident, not as rejection of me, but as the silencing of Caleb, which I must admit is a rather more mature way of interpreting the event than I had.

So what do walking Chris, the kissing couple, Zoe, Caleb and Lia all have in common? They are all victims of homophobia, and, to my knowledge, none of them is gay.

We tend to think of homophobia like we think of racism, as hostility, prejudice and violence against a particular group, in this case gay, lesbian and transgender people. And certainly it is sometimes, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that gay, lesbian and transgender people (who I like to refer to as people of the Rainbow Tribe) are more like some sort of collateral damage inflicted primarily by those who are so insecure about their own identities they need to hide their insecurity and sexual ambivalence beneath a protective coating of ubermanliness. No, I think the real victims of homophobia, and I think the intended victims of homophobia are not people of the Rainbow tribe. They are rather boys and men, especially young men. And the true goal of homophobia is not to inflict pain and suffering on gays but rather to create a male monoculture faithful to the culturally defined rules of manhood.

In her book Self Made Man, Norah Vincent chronicles her year-long impersonation of a man and her infiltration into an all male bowling club, a monastery and the world of hypercompetitive sales. Vincent, who is really a gay woman, summarizes the experience in her final chapter, which I highly recommend, especially for men. Here is an excerpt:

“Somebody is always evaluating your manhood. Whether it’s other men, other women, even children. And everybody is always on the lookout for your weakness or your inadequacy; as if it’s some kind of plague they’re terrified of catching, or, more important, of other men catching. If you don’t make the right move, put your eyes in the right place at any given moment, in the eyes of the culture at large that threatens the whole structure. Consequently, somebody has always got to be there kicking you under the table, redirecting, making or keeping you a real man.”And that, I learned very quickly, is the straightjacket of the male role. You’re not allowed to be a complete human being. Instead you get to be a coached jumble of stoic poses. You get to be what’s expected of you.

“The worst of this scrutiny came from being perceived as an effeminate guy even though in real life I’d always been perceived as a masculine woman. Other guys, it turned out, were hypervigilant about the rules of manhood, and they were disconcerted, sometimes deeply so, by my failure to observe those rules. They could be obtuse as hell about all kinds of other signals, especially emotional ones, but boy were they attuned to the masculinity quotient. So much so that it really does justify the term homophobia — and I’ve certainly never been a fan of that word. But it felt to me as if most men were genuinely afraid, almost desperately afraid sometimes of the spectral fag in their midst. It’s hard to explain it otherwise.” (Self Made Man by Norah Vincent, pp. 276-277)

Think about what the children’s response to the poster of the two men in San Francisco said to every boy on that bus about what you can and cannot do as a man. Think about what it says about the parameters of male affection, and if expressions of affection are rigidly controlled and restricted, do you think the capacity to love is unaffected? By the rules that every 4th grader on that bus already knew, two shirtless men standing together touching one another affectionately had better have just beat the dickens out of the opposing team or else be holding M16s. Then, maybe it’s okay. Otherwise, there’s always the specter of the fag. And it wasn’t just the boys who reacted negatively, the girls were right there with them. I believe homophobia is why there’s never been a men’s movement equal to the women’s movement in liberation from the straightjacket of social expectation and oppression.

But why, if women can be freed from rigid social roles governing their occupational, recreational and sartorial choices can’t men? Why is the society so stubbornly reluctant to cast homophobia on the trash heap of human folly along with racism? There are probably a variety of reasons, but I think the real goal, as I said earlier, is to create a male monoculture. Look around. The culture very much controls how boys and men dress, their hair styles, their general appearance plus it controls men in ways men don’t even know. For instance, how men move their hands, walk, sit in a chair, enter a room, talk, even the vocabulary they can use are all controlled to achieve a high level of conformity. I know, because I have had to try and unlearn them, and it hasn’t been easy, because these rules of behavior are beaten deep into males at a very young age. Why? Because if even trivial behaviors can be controlled, there is a greater likelihood that men’s thoughts can also be controlled, and society wants to control the way men think because that increases the likelihood that there will always be a sufficiently large pool of men, particularly young men, who can be convinced that it is right and good and divinely sanctioned that they should fight and kill, suffer and die to protect the status quo when the controlling elite determine that it is being threatened. Homophobia is one of the most powerful psychological hammers used to beat and fashion young men into the shape of warriors.

So if the goal of society is to create a male monoculture and homophobia is a tool to that end, then, in what can only be described as a remarkable irony, homophobia and HIV are two expressions of the same disease. Julia Whitty in the May/June issue of Mother Jones writes, “The richer an area’s biodiversity, the tougher its immune system, since biodiversity includes not only the number of species but also the number of individuals within that species, and all the inherent genetic variation — life’s only army against the diseases of oblivion.” HIV, the virus that causes AIDS is a disease that attacks the body’s immune system, leaving the victim vulnerable to opportunistic infections that are eventually fatal. Homophobia does the same thing to the psyche, both the individual and the social psyche. It works to create a male monoculture thereby weakening the immune system, leaving the victims vulnerable to the infections of fear, suspicion, scapegoating, prejudice, discrimination, repression of the true self, misogyny, nationalism, fundamentalism, violence and the ultimately fatal disease of war.

If I’m right, even if I’m just partially right, we have seriously under appreciated the degree to which homophobia has infected our culture, the degree to which it has weakened our immunity to disease, and we have failed to calculate the inestimable damage it inflicts — not just on homosexuals — but on the psyches of men and boys, and thus on the collective psyche of the entire society. The spectral fag is the 10-ton gorilla in the room wrecking havoc to which we are as oblivious as people were oblivious to the presence and power of germs prior to Louis Pasteur in 1860.

But do not be dismayed for there are signs of hope:

As an adult, Zoe and her gay father have a wonderful relationship.

Some time back I was transporting one of the junior high girl’s teams to Ukiah for a competition. We pulled up to the school and standing in the crosswalk was a handsome, bearded, middle-aged man wearing a skirt. It resembled a kilt, but it wasn’t like any kilt I’ve ever seen. Of course, the girls on my bus went nuts at seeing a man wearing a skirt, but the kids at the school seemed to take no notice of it whatsoever. When he kindly directed me to the bathroom later, I got the distinct impression he was the school principle. So guys, maybe your sartorial choices aren’t as limited as you think — especially if you have nice legs.

K.C. makes up forms for the junior college, and on a recent women’s retreat she told me that on one questionnaire she made, on the question of sex, she put: male, female, other. I have a box of my own to check. I exist. Don’t underestimate the significance of something so seemingly small. I keep waiting for a form from the California State University system that instead of asking for the name of: 1) mother and 2) father, simply says: Parents’ names. Are there no gay parents in California?

Recently in my partner Jan’s classroom of 1-3rd graders, a conflict arose over some playground issue that fell along gender lines. It seems the boys wanted one thing and the girls wanted another. When someone pointed out that Raymond had voted with the girls, one of the boys responded, “Well, Raymond’s a girl.” He said this not as a put-down or with intent to hurt or belittle Raymond, but simply as a statement of fact. And Raymond took no offense, but rather accepted it as a statement of fact. Did they mean they thought of Raymond as female? No. Raymond is obviously not female and shows no desire to be. He is simply a girl in the way girls are girls. Imagine a world in which males can be girls without shame or fear. Imagine a male equivalent to tomboy. Why don’t we have one?

I was on my way to speak to a gathering of students at Sonoma State, when I saw attached to the backpack of a young female student walking ahead of me a rainbow pin that simply said, Ally. I caught up to her and said, “I just want to thank you for your pin. It means a lot to those of us in the tribe.” She said the Gay/Straight Alliance had been handing them out. We chatted briefly and went our separate ways. It’s good to know there are people out there who are our allies and aren’t afraid to make it known.

A female student was recently allowed to seek the title of Prom King, because California law protects the gender identity of students. I didn’t know that. And I want to name one other sign of hope, and if this matters to you, I want you to think about it the next time the offering plate passes or you are asked to pledge. This is a sign of hope: that I am welcomed without qualm or question into this religious community and am up here preaching to you today. And while there are a few other congregations in the county that might allow me into their pulpits, I am quite certain there are very, very few — perhaps no others — where shortly after joining I was asked, “You are coming to the women’s group, aren’t you?” Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I imagine such a thing would happen.

Now I am very much aware that next to the behemoth of homophobia, these signs of hope are ridiculously flimsy. It’s like flies trying to topple an elephant. But…if the flies got together and swarmed the eyes of the elephant, blinding it to the log in the path, over which it tripped and fell, could we not say that the flies brought down the elephant?

Please take your hymnals and turn to hymn #170, We Are A Gentle, Angry People. If We Shall Overcome is the signature song of the Civil Rights movement, I would like this to be the signature song of the movement for the rights of the Rainbow Tribe. So in honor of Gay Pride Month, I ask you to sing it with me, but I don’t want you to sing it like a bunch of straight people. I want you to think about all the little boys whose essential individuality is being beaten out of them. Think of the young men in Iraq who are literally being beaten to death even as we sing. Think of them when you sing it. And besides that, by virtue of my acceptance into this community my family and many of my old friends think all of you are a little queer. So by the power vested in me as a Two-Spirit of the Rainbow Tribe, I pronounce you all queer for the day. Sing it like you belong.

Sermon: Slowing Down

1. New Scientist. “How interruptions can destroy your day,” 28 June 2006,
2. Peter Russell, Waking Up in Time, 1998, p. 19.
3. Phillip Simmons, Learning to Fall, 2000, p. 121.
4. “The Colour of Happiness”, New Scientist Magazine vol 178 issue 2396 – 24 May 2003, p. 44.
5. Easwaran, Strength in the Storm, 2005, p. 20.
6. John Marshall, An assessment of the impact of the relaxation response on physiologic measurements and spiritual dimensions, 2006.
7. Ann Richards, Doug Oman, John Hedberg, Carl E. Thoresen, Jeanne Bowden, A Qualitative Examination of a Spiritually-Based Intervention and Self-Management in the Workplace, 2006.
8. Tungshan, Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi, Taigen Leighton, trans.

“This I believe: I believe that the staff work of the Divine is redemption.”

Delivered by Meredith Guest on June 18, 2006

When I agreed to do a This I Believe sermon, T was kind enough to inform me via e-mail that the next scheduled one was on Father’s Day. She suggested that my speaking on this day would be “provocative.”

Provocative? More like “perverse” I responded. Still, I agreed; if for no other reason than I am a sucker for irony. I think it’s why I like the Hebrew Scriptures so much, because they’re full of it. “Plus,” I replied, “it should be good for a laugh or two.”

T, being the thoughtful, kind and sensitive person she is, replied, “Look, Meredith, if you aren’t comfortable with this or think it is in some way laughable, we can schedule you for another day.”

I replied: “Laughable? What’s wrong with laughable? Beats the hell out of tragic, and as for comfortable? Comfort is something I have rarely enjoyed living as a transsexual in a society that deems me a freak, or, for that matter, even in my own skin, since I often feel like one.”

The belief about which I speak today is best illustrated if I tell you stories about my children, and since today is, after all, father’s day, I hope this is an indulgence you will allow me if just this once.

In the interest of full disclosure: While I will be talking about “my” children, they are, of course, not just my children. They also have a wonderful biological mother whose name is Marsha. We separated shortly after moving to California when Marsha met a man –finally. At that time Lia was two and Caleb almost five, and from that point on we put aside our differences in order to share the care and tending of the children equally.

Also, the stories I will tell today are my version; the children have their own versions that differ in some ways from mine. For instance, my version does not include the word “ogre,” nor will I use the “B” –itch word; or, at least, not in reference to myself, though I am one of the few people who take no offense at this insult, since it tends to include me in the group to which I have always most wanted to belong.

Furthermore, I would like to apologize to those of you who have read my memoir, since many of the stories I will be sharing today appear there, and you will, therefore, be required to hear them again. Jodi was kind enough to read my memoir and afterward said she lived with my voice in her head for the entire next week. I told her I had the same problem and that I sometimes found that large quantities of alcohol helped alleviate the worst of the symptoms.

So it’s true: I fathered two children.

It was a bad idea.

It was a bad idea because probably the only thing more unforgivable than being born with a penis is using the accursed thing for Nature’s intended purpose. Now, for the record, I have nothing against penises or those who possess and treasure them. If you happen to be born a boy, a penis is a wonderful little thing. If, however, you are born a girl, they are a birth defect –and not an insignificant one at that.

Also, I agreed to children out a sense of shame and guilt, and shame and guilt are bad reasons to do anything.

And then, there was the obvious problem that I did not want to live my life pretending to be a man, and (in case you haven’t noticed) there’s a rather strong connection in the minds of most people between being a dad and being a man.

Furthermore, I was not too keen on being a parent at all; there were lots of things I’d rather spent my time doing. I loved teaching, so it’s not like I didn’t like kids, but parenting and teaching are two very different things, though, fortunately for me, they are not unrelated. I often reconciled myself to parenting by thinking of it as teaching. My reasoning went something like this: If I do this job of parenting really well; if I’m careful and attentive and raise these children to be competent, capable, independent adults, I’ll be able to get them out of the house sooner and keep them out longer. The empty nest syndrome was not something I was likely to suffer from –that is, until the nest was empty.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that these sentiments are not likely to qualify me for either Mother or Father Of The Year, but when you really thing about it, it’s not a half bad way to think about parenting.

There are bad gods. After some 20 years of teaching I have come to believe that one of the worst, most demanding, unforgiving, oppressive and obnoxious gods is a worshiped child. My children were not worshiped.

In fact, when they were very small at random times I would knock them down. Now I didn’t do this in a mean or cruel way. Mostly I did it when they got in my way. I mean, I am very tall and toddlers are very short, and it’s hard to see them way down there, especially if you’re carrying a load of laundry. Also, I knew that at times they would be the victims of cruelty, meanness and plain old bad luck, and that they needed to learn how to get knocked down and then, to get back up, and the sooner they learned it the better.

Now after field-testing this method of parenting on my two, I am prepared to recommend it. For one thing, they learn to stay out of your way. In fact, just the other day I was cooking breakfast and my twenty-three year old son ambled into the kitchen just as I turned from the sink to the stove. Suddenly, here’s this six foot, three, 185 pounds of solid muscle man scurrying to get out of my way, and I thought, Hey, it still works. Plus, I was right: Over the course of their lives, they have gotten knocked down, sometimes hard, and so far, they’ve always gotten right back up.

I also mention it, because I don’t think you’re likely to find this strategy in any of the current parenting manuals. So, I offer it for whatever it’s worth: probably what I’m charging you for it.

Then when they got older I did things with them. I taught them to play sports. I did not, however, encourage them to play winner-take-all team sports wherein children get to ape the behaviors and adopt the values of egomaniacal, drug abusing professional athletes. That was their other mother. But when they decided to play, I agreed to support them, but I wanted two things: I wanted them to do it for themselves, not me and not to please anyone else. And when it stopped being fun, I wanted them to stop doing it. Whenever I asked about a particular game I had not seen, and they replied, “Oh, we won.” or “We lost.” I would say, that’s not what I asked. I asked how the game went. Did you play well? Were there any exciting moments you want to tell me about?

Eventually, I was very grateful they both became swimmers on the Petaluma High team, since the intensity of competition for these minor sports is much less than for the big ones.

However, in Caleb’s senior year in high school, he announced his intention to go out for the football team.

“Caleb,” I protested, “You know you can’t go out for football your senior year and expect to play.”

“I know,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I just want to do it for the experience.”

And so he went out and made the team.

Eventually I mustered the courage to go to one of the games –Homecoming, I think it was. (As testosterone fests celebrating the macho, football games are not exactly friendly territory for transsexuals.) It was one of those games where the other team was getting trounced so thoroughly, the second and third strings got to play, so all of a sudden, there Caleb was on the field, all tall and lean and gladiatorial in his royal blue football uniform.

Watching him out on that field, I had a sudden realization, one that still brings tears to my eyes. As he bounced up and down on his toes like a colt with energy to burn, I thought: he plays with heart; my child, he plays with heart. And in that moment the parents of the starting quarterback couldn’t have been prouder of their child than I was of my third stringer; for to play with heart, is it not always to win? And then –to top it off –the little stinker went and caught a touchdown pass. It is and will always be a great family story.

As a child, having found sanctuary and sanity in the out of doors, I early on took mine camping and canoeing. One particularly rich time was the summer we went on a four-day canoe camping trip on the Russian river when Lia was about six and Caleb eight. Away from the demands and distractions of work, free from the roles and expectations automatically imposed by others, we spent long, slow hours simply enjoying one another’s company. While we had canoed and camped before, it had rarely been just the three of us, and I made special preparations for the time. Drawing from memories of my own childhood, I brought along rubber soldiers, the kind I had played with, and we made up an elaborate war game using stones, slingshots and even the pellet gun. It took us several hours to mostly annihilate the other’s army, and I think we were eventually forced to conjure up some natural disaster to finally end the game. (My children, I am glad to report, seem not the slightest bit inclined toward violence, military service, or NRA membership as a result of this warlike exercise.) I borrowed a friend’s 22 pistol, and we target practiced against a high bluff. I can still remember little Lia, the gun clutched tightly in both hands, blasting away at a boiled egg. The hillside began to give way with the weight of lead by the time she gleefully blew the thing to smithereens. We camped for two of the three nights on a gravel bar where a small tree jutted out over the river providing a perfect four-foot high diving platform. We’d throw these foot-long colored rods weighted on one end into the water, then dive off the platform trying to gather them all up before surfacing. Given the current, it was no small task, even for me. We cooked over an open fire, slept under the stars; we even made a sweat lodge, in which I led them in a simple ritual that I regrettably can no longer remember. Diving with masks and snorkels, Caleb and I discovered a submerged canoe, which we managed to free from its captivity and, with Caleb solo in the stern, bring home as a prize. With an extra craft, Lia was forced to paddle the little kayak (more like an oversized piece of Tupperware than a real kayak) rather than ride like the river princess in the bow of my canoe. I still smile remembering her morosely slouched down inside it, a large straw hat protecting her face from the sun, paddling down the river whining, “My arms hurt.”

I even taught Caleb to hunt; I mean, how much more manly can you get than to kill small animals with large weapons. Now I don’t oppose hunting. In fact, I think everyone who eats meat should at least once in their lifetime experience the entire process: the predatory stealth of the hunt, the thrill of the kill, the agony of watching the light in a wounded animal’s eye fade into the opaque mystery of death, the feel and stench of bloody entrails, the savory tang of wild meat. It gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘food.’ I tried to teach Lia, but she adamantly refused and by then, my predatory instincts, never very strong in the first place, were all but gone.

When I could no longer perpetuate the lie of manliness, and, by extension, fatherhood, Caleb was poised to begin his sophomore year in high school, while Lia was entering ninth grade. Marsha and her boyfriend Tom were at the time living in Sonoma where the children also attended school. I had just been fired from teaching and –no longer with a job to lose –had decided to make a break for it and come fully out of the closet. That’s when Caleb decided he wanted to switch schools and attend Petaluma High.

By that time I could not have crammed myself back into that closet had I wanted to, and I told him this in no uncertain terms. I said, and, as I recall, these were my exact words: “I am coming out of the closet, Caleb, and I won’t go back in for you.” (Our children rarely enjoyed sugarcoated versions of the truth.) I reminded him that he had a perfectly normal mother, and he might seriously want to reconsider staying in the high school where she lived, since going to school in the same town where I lived could prove tricky, to say the least. Still, he persisted. I pressed him. “For instance,” I said, trying to paint the picture for him in horrifyingly graphic terms, “One day you’re going to be standing around with your buddies when someone walks up and says, ‘Hey Caleb, I saw your dad downtown in a dress.’ What are you going to say then?” He looked annoyed at the question and answered, “So,” in one of those semi-intelligible grunts common to high school boys.

“So? Is that all you can come up with?” I protested. “How about, ‘Oh, my God! She wasn’t wearing the mini-skirt was she? I hate it when she wears the miniskirt!’ or ‘And you thought your parents were weird.’” He was not amused, but I forced this sort of conversation on him more than once, and still, he enrolled in my town’s school.

Since boys are arguably more homophobic than girls, I expected it to be harder for Caleb, but that proved not always so. Lia had her own times of difficult misgivings. (In a classic case of insult added to injury, Lia reported that the most annoying thing she had to deal with was, once she revealed that I was transsexual, not only did she have to explain what that meant, but that then she had to assure her friends that I did NOT dress like a hooker.)

While there were moments of discomfort for everyone –the children, their friends and me –it went much more smoothly than I think anyone expected. While it was odd that I was their father and dressed and lived my life as a woman, once their friends got to know me, I was not particularly odd. While I was a little funny looking, I was likewise, just plain funny and friendly and more interested in them than I thought they should be in me. And while dressing like a woman was strange, I did not dress strangely for a woman. (Truth be known, I dressed a good bit more like the traditional image of a mother than most of their mothers did.) And how can you feel too badly about an adult who, on the sole condition you surrender your car keys, provides a safe place where you can hang out with your friends, drink beer and smoke pot and then, the next morning medicates you with liberal quantities of water, ibuprofen and homemade buttermilk biscuits? Okay, maybe she’s weird –but she’s cool.

Don’t get me wrong; I did not try to be cool. While I definitely appreciated their acceptance, I did not approve of their drug use. I particularly didn’t like that drugs and alcohol seemed to be prerequisites for fun, and I said so many times. If I’d had my way, they would have sat around chatting, drinking soda, eating popcorn and playing Twister. But given that they weren’t about to surrender their social lives to my wishes and given that we had always promoted curiosity coupled with lavish permission to explore, I knew that regardless of how we felt about it, they were eventually going to explore the world of intoxicating substances. I simply wanted to make sure that their first experiences took place in as safe an environment as possible and before they left home. That way we could talk about it, reflect on it, debrief it, critique it, and by relinquishing attempts to control, I hoped I might be allowed influence and thereby, help them avoid abuse and addiction. So far, it seems to have worked, though I am not yet ready to recommend it. It is perilous strategy.

I tell you these things, because, as I said in the beginning, I think they illustrate and incarnate a belief I hold dearly and deeply. So, This I believe: I believe that the staff work of the Divine is redemption. For, you see, this should never have been. I should never have fathered children. I mean, what was I thinking? And once here, my anger, resentment and consequent depression at being sentenced to a lifetime of being a dad should have poisoned my relationship to them. When we moved from Maryland to California, I left behind everything and everyone I loved save for Caleb and Lia. At that moment I had the perfect opportunity to escape, but I didn’t, and I didn’t for one reason and one reason alone: my children. Then, when I came out of the closet, their anger, grief and resentment at my taking away their father should have poisoned their love for me. Plus, just the embarrassment factor alone should have sent them screaming in the opposite direction. Our relationships should either not exist or be fraught with resentment, pain, struggle and dysfunction. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, that by all accounts (not just my own) the relationships between my children and me are some of the most healthy, happy, intimate and loving to be found anywhere, thereby illustrating to me that if we are but open and willing, the Divine will take our bad ideas, mistakes, follies and failures and in her hands form, shape and remake them into that which is beautiful, loving and –to borrow from Genesis –very, very good.

And so with this assurance, I wish you a happy fathering day.